The Supreme Court on Tuesday reiterated that Article 370 of the Constitution is not a temporary provision. Article 370 grants special, autonomous status to Jammu and Kashmir.
“The issue concerned is covered by the judgement of this court in the 2017 SARFAESI [ Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest] matter, where we have held that despite the headnote of Article 370, it is not a temporary provision,” a bench of justices AK Goel and RF Nariman said, according to PTI.
The court was hearing an appeal against a 2017 Delhi High Court order that dismissed a plea seeking to declare Article 370 temporary in nature. The petitioner said that Article 370 had lapsed and that the separate constitution of Jammu and Kashmir be declared illegal.
The petitioner also claimed that the continuing Article 370 even after the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly of Jammu and Kashmir, and that of the Jammu and Kashmir “amounts to fraud on basic structure of our Constitution.”
Last week, Union Minister of State for Home Hansraj Gangaram Ahir had told the Lok Sabha there was no proposal to scrap Article 370. The BJP’s election manifesto in 2014 had included scrapping Article 370. This has been a matter of contention between the BJP and its ally in Jammu and Kashmir, the People’s Democratic Party.
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