After a delay of four years, the Supreme Court has finally taken up the petitions challenging the Government of India’s (GoI) abrogation of the semi-autonomous status of the erstwhile State of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) and its degradation into two Union Territories (UTs). I have written about the implications of the long delay in hearing the petitions here and here. The petitions have now been clubbed, and according to the Court, will be referred to as In Re: Article 370 after the initial hearing on July 11. The matter is listed for hearing on August 02.
A substantial body of written work covers the context, political motivations, and the resultant constitutional absurdity of the effective abrogation of Article 370 which codified the terms and conditions of J&K’s accession with the Indian Union. Relatively little scholarship exists on the legality of the J&K Reorganisation Act, 2019 through which the GoI, using Article 3 of the Constitution of India, not only abolished the ‘Statehood’ of J&K but also bifurcated it into two UTs. As the Court is expected to determine the constitutionality of the Reorganisation Act, the questions on reorganisation merit some attention.
The debate can be precisely framed as: Does Parliament have the power to entirely destroy/abolish a State and convert it into a UT or a group of UTs under Article 3 of the Constitution of India? This becomes more pertinent in the context of J&K where the Constitution of India applied with modifications and exceptions through a mechanism provided under Article 370 itself.