The Sajad Lone-led Jammu and Kashmir People’s Conference petitioned the Supreme Court on Monday seeking early hearing of the pleas against the constitutional validity of the amendment to Article 370 on August 5 last year.
The petition also challenged the various legal modifications the Centre had carried out since then relating to Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh — for instance, enabling outsiders to acquire land there — as illegal and as violations of the permanent residents’ rights.
It said that although a bunch of petitions had been moved before the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the changes to Article 370, the Centre had continued to carry the agenda forward by amending various Kashmir-related laws.
The apex court had last heard this bunch of petitions on March 2, after which the pandemic prevented further hearings.
Lone’s party was one of these early petitioners against the tweaking of Article 370, which stripped the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir of its special status.
Its latest petition, apart from seeking early hearing of these pleas, challenges other government moves such as splitting the erstwhile state into two Union Territories and amending its land laws.
With the apex court on Diwali break, the petition is expected to be heard next week.
After 11 hearings of the earlier bunch of petitions, the apex court had on March 2 rejected the plea of some of the petitioners to refer the matter to a five-judge or seven-judge constitution bench.
The court held that a three-judge bench was good enough. It also declined a plea to stay the amendments to Article 370.
Monday’s petition, filed through advocate Pritha Srikumar Iyer, highlights that the Centre “has continued to affect drastic changes to the legal regime applicable to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, including by way of orders issued under Section 96 of the Reorganisation Act”.
“These orders extend the applicability of various central laws to the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, created under the Reorganisation Act. Further, the state laws of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir have also been repealed, adapted and modified,” the petition says.
It says the changes made to Jammu and Kashmir’s constitutional status “impact the vested rights of the permanent residents of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir as well as the rights of other Indian citizens”.
It complains that “the protection offered to the ‘economically weaker section’ and ‘low income group’ under the Jammu and Kashmir Development Act by way of allotment of housing sites is no longer restricted to permanent residents of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir”.
