The Supreme Court on Tuesday said that it will hear pleas challenging the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution that vested special status on the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.
A five-judge Constitution bench of the SC has fixed July 27 as the deadline for filing of documents, written submissions by parties.
The Central government told the SC that post the changes, street violence, which was engineered and orchestrated by terrorists and secessionist networks has now become a thing of the past.
Centre’s statement on Article 370
The centre said that since 2019, when Article 370 was abrogated, the entire region has witnessed an “unprecedented era of peace, progress, and prosperity.”
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After the abrogation of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir, life has returned to normalcy there after three decades of turmoil, the Centre told the Supreme Court.
Schools, colleges, and universities are functioning without any strikes during the last three years, it added.
Centre in its affidavit said, “The earlier practice of strikes and bandhs is a thing of the past. Participation in sporting activities is phenomenal having reached 60 lakhs in 2022-23. These facts clearly prove the positive impact of the constitutional changes effected in 2019.”
The affidavit of the Centre was filed on a batch of petitions challenging the abrogation of Article 370 and bifurcation of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union territories
The petitions which are pending since 2019 have not been taken up for hearing since March 2020.
Various petitions are pending before the top court challenging the validity of the law scrapping Article 370 of the Constitution and special status to Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcating the state into two Union Territories.
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