Nithyakalyani Narayanan. V
Review petitions challenging the validity of the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution have been denied. On May 1, a bench consisting of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice Sanjiv Khanna, Justice BR Gavai, Justice Surya Kant and Justice AS Bopanna declared that no case was presented for review.
The Bench held that after studying the review petitions, it is clear that there are no errors in the record and that there is no basis for review under Supreme Court Rules 2013’s Order XLVII Rule 1. Thus, the Court declared, that the review applications are rejected.
The review petitions had contested the Supreme Court’s December 2023 ruling upholding the removal of Article 370, which had previously granted the former State of Jammu and Kashmir a special status. The Court reasoned that Article 370 was only intended to be transitory.
In addition, the Court declined to rule at the time on the legality of the 2019 legislation that had made it possible for Jammu and Kashmir to be divided into two Union Territories following the revocation of Article 370.
Rather, the Solicitor General of India, Tushar Mehta, assured the Court that the region would eventually regain its sovereignty. The decision drew criticism from various sources.
According to Justice Rohinton Nariman, former Judge of the Supreme Court, the ruling was unsettling, had a significant impact on federalism and permitted the Union government to circumvent Article 356 of the Constitution, which states that the President may only rule a State for a single year.
Senior Advocate Fali S. Nariman, his father and a seasoned jurist, later bemoaned the absence of a dissenting opinion in the case.
Name of the case: Awami National Conference vs Union of India and Anr.
Bench: Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, Surya Kant and AS Bopanna.