The Supreme Court termed as “unacceptable” the submission that Article 370 of the Constitution ceased to operate once the term of the constituent assembly of Jammu and Kashmir ended in 1957 after drafting the state’s Constitution.
The remark by a five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud came when senior advocate Dinesh Dwivedi, appearing for intervenor Prem Shankar Jha, argued that nothing of Article 370, which accorded special status to the erstwhile state, survived once the Constitution of J-K was enacted on January 26, 1957 and the term of the state’s constituent assembly ended, reported PTI.
Jha, who has challenged the August 5, 2019 decision of the Centre to abrogate Article 370, raised the legal question about whether Article 370 ceased to operate or exist after the enactment of the Constitution of J&K and the dissolution of the constituent assembly, the report mentioned.
This led the bench to raise queries on the legality of the submissions.
The bench, also comprising Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai and Surya Kant told Dwivedi that the court has to look at the Indian constituent assembly debates and the intent of the makers of the Indian Constitution in a manner in which the Article 370 was framed.