“Will Take A Call On It” : CJI DY Chandrachud On Plea To List Article 370 Matter

Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud on Friday said that he will take a call on listing the batch of petitions challenging the abrogation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370.

Senior Advocate Raju Ramachandran mentioned the matter for urgent listing. “I’ll take a call on it”, CJI said. The matter was earlier mentioned before CJI DY Chandrachud for urgent listing in December 2022. “We will examine and give a date”, CJI had said then.

In 2019, the petitions were referred to a Constitution Bench comprising Justices N V Ramana, Sanjay Kishan Kaul, R Subhash Reddy, B R Gavai and Surya Kant.

The hearings on the Article 370 cases commenced before the 5-judge bench in December 2019, almost 4 months after the notifications issued by the Centre in August 2019. A preliminary issue arose in the case as to whether a reference to 7-judge bench was necessary in light of alleged divergence in the opinions expressed by two coordinate benches of the Supreme Court in the cases of Prem Nath Kaul and Sampath Prakash. By a judgment dated 2ndMarch, 2020, the Constitution Bench held that there was no need to refer the matter to a larger Bench.

The petitions have not been listed after March 2, 2020.

In September 2022, the then CJI UU Lalit had agreed to list the petitions. Earlier, in April 2022, the then CJI NV Ramana had not expressed anything definite when the matter was sought to be listed.

Two members of the Constitution Bench, Justices NV Ramana and Subhash Reddy, have retired.