After a gap of almost four years, the Supreme Court of India set up a new constitution bench that began proceedings on 23 writ petitions challenging the legality of revocation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution that enshrined special status and limited autonomy for the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).[1] The Supreme Court decided to conduct day-to-day proceedings from August 2, 2023.[2] The five-member bench comprised Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, and Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, B.R. Gavai, and Surya Kant.
Interestingly, no genuine Kashmiri citizens of integrity, like human rights activist Shehla Rashid had filed a petition related to Article 370 before the Indian Supreme Court. It is perhaps because they have no faith in the Indian Constitution and Judiciary, especially as in recent years, the Modi regime had used the judiciary as a means to advance its Hindutva ideology and turned the Indian Supreme Court into a Kangaroo Court. Challenging Indian Government’s act of revoking Articles 370 and 35A, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, Advocate Gopal Subramanian, Advocate Zaffar Shah, Advocate Rajeev Dhavan, Advocate Dushyant Dave, Advocate Shekhar Naphade, Advocate Dinesh Dwivedi, Advocate Chander Uday Singh, Advocate Sanjay Parekh, Advocate P.C Sen, Advocate Nitya Ramakrishnan, Menaka Guruswamy, Advocate Manish Tewari, Advocate Warisha Farasat, Advocate Gopal Sankanarayanan represented National Conference’s Muhammad Akbar Lone, Muzaffar Iqbal Khan, Jammu and Kashmir Bar Association, Jammu and Kashmir People’s Conference, Ms. Rifat Ara Butt, former Kashmir interlocutor Radha Kumar, Manohar Lal Sharma & Prem Shanker Jha, Inderji Tikoo, Satish Jacob, and MY Tarigami, Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), (also) representing Ms. Radha Kumar, People’s Democratic Party, Javid Bhat and Awami National Conference, a politician from Arunachal Pradesh, RTI activist Venkatesh Nayak, and petitioner Soyaib Qureshi, respectively. On the other hand, Attorney General R Venkataramani, Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta, Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj and Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi argued on behalf on the Centre, whereas Advocate Kanu Agarwal appeared on behalf of the State government of IIOJK. Advocate V Giri appeared on behalf of All India Kashmiri Samaj, Advocate Mahesh Jethmalani argued for the members of the Gujjar Bakarwal community in IIOJK, and Advocate Gurukrishna Kumar appeared for people who had migrated to IIOJK from regions that came to be part of Pakistan.
