SC reserves judgement on referring plea on Art 370 to larger bench

The Supreme Court's five judge bench on Thursday reserved its judgement on a plea for referring the batch of petitions challenging validity of the Union government's August 5 decision to take away special status of Jammu and Kashmir and to reorganise it into two Union Territories, for a larger bench.

A bench of Justices N V Ramana, Sanjay Kishan Kaul, R Subhash Reddy, B R Gavai and Surya Kant wrapped up hearing on the point of reference in the matter where the Union government led by Attorney General K K Venugopal and Solicitor General Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and other senior counsel, including senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, for some of the parties opposed it.

The top law officer maintained that accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India was final and irreversible.

Venugopal referred to the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir to contend that the question of referendum did not arise in light of a permanent declaration of it being an integral part of India. He also cited its Preamble to argue that there was no question of plebiscite in light of the explicit declarations that it would be an integral part of India in its own Constitution.

He also relied upon VP Menon’s book “Integration of the Indian States” to highlight the discord between Pakistan and the Maharaja Hari Singh. He said the Maharaja had entered into a Standstill agreement with Pakistan which had in fact violated the covenant, allowing truckloads of tribesmen trained in combat to overtake the state.

The Prem Nath Kaul Judgment (1959) stated that on October 25, 1947, the Maharaja signed an Instrument of Accession with India which had then become an independent dominion. The Sampat Prakash Judgment (1969), on the other hand, answered the ancillary questions surrounding the operation of Article 370. Relying upon the Santosh Gupta judgment (2017), he said it was thus clear that the State of Jammu and Kashmir had no vestige of sovereignty outside the Constitution of India.