Pleas challenging Article 370 abrogation to be heard by SC after Dussehra break

The petitions challenging the abrogation of Article 370 which had conferred special status on Jammu and Kashmir would come up for hearing after the upcoming Dussehra vacations, the Supreme Court said on Friday.

The apex court is closing for Dussehra break on October 3. It will reopen on October 10. "It will be listed after Dussehra break," Chief Justice of India UU Lalit said.

The matter was mentioned before a bench led by the CJI by senior advocate Prashanto Chandra Sen. More than 20 pleas challenging the Centre's move to abrogate Article 370 of the Constitution in August 2019 are hanging fire before the Supreme Court.


Some of the pleas have been filed by former Air Vice Marshal Kapil Kak, Gopal Krishna Pillai, Hindal Tyabji, Dr Radha Kumar, General Ashok Mehta and others.

By abrogating Article 370, the Centre had revoked the special status of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. Subsequently, the State was bifurcated into two Union Territories, the Union Territory of Ladakh and the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

It might be mentioned-here that a five-judge Constitution bench in March 2020 had ruled against referring a clutch of petitions to a seven-judge Constitution bench.

A few petitioners had sought reference of the case to a seven-judge bench arguing that there was a conflict between two judgements of the Supreme Court given by five-judge benches and dealt with the interpretation of Article 370.