The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the deletion of the names of IAS officer Shah Faesal and activist Shehla Rashid as petitioners challenging the abrogation of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir, stripping the state of its special status and bifurcating it into two Union Territories.
A Constitution bench of the apex court headed by CJI DY Chandrachud has posted the matter for day-to-day hearing from August 2.
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Rashid and Faesal were among 23 petitioners who moved the top court in 2022 challenging the Centre’s decision to abrogate Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir.
In September 2022, Faesal had moved SC seeking to withdraw his name from the list of petitioners challenging the Presidential Order scrapping Article 370 of the Constitition. He was reinstated to the IAS in April last year after he withdrew his resignation.
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The Centre had issued an order on August 5, 2019, amending The Constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Order, 1954, and superseding it with The Constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Order, 2019. The new order made “all the provisions of the Constitution” applicable to Jammu and Kashmir.
The government also amended Article 367 to add a new Clause (4), making the Constitution of India directly applicable to Jammu and Kashmir.
On August 6, the President issued a declaration under Article 370(3) making all its clauses inoperative except the provision that all articles of the Constitution shall apply to Jammu and Kashmir.