SRINAGAR: Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana on Monday, April 25, 2022, said he would discuss with other judges and consider listing, after summer vacations, the petitions challenging the abrogation of Article 370 to strip the Jammu and Kashmir people of their special privileges which led to the bifurcation of the State.

“Let me see after the vacations… This is a five-judge Bench case… Let me also ask other judges,” the CJI addressed a group of senior advocates, including P. Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal and Shekhar Naphade.

Summer holidays begin from May 23 and the court reopens on July 11. Chief Justice Ramana retires on August 26

The senior advocates, in an oral mentioning before the CJI, said the Article 370 case had been pending in the Supreme Court for over two years even as a separate challenge has been filed against the Centre’s decision to appoint a Delimitation Commission to redraw Lok Sabha and Assembly constituencies of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

“Let the case be listed immediately after the vacations,” newspaper The Hindu quoted Chidambaram as having said.

The case had not come up after a five-judge Bench led by Justice (as he was then) Ramana, in order in March 2020, refused to refer the petitions to a larger Bench. Since then, one of the judges on that Bench, Justice R. Subhash Reddy, has retired.

More than 20 petitions are pending before the top court challenging the Central governments’ August 2019 decision to abrogate Article 370 of the Constitution.

By abrogating the Article, the Centre had revoked the special status of the state of Jammu & Kashmir. Subsequently, the State was bifurcated into two Union Territories, the Union Territory of Ladakh and the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir.

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