The Supreme Court on Monday adjourned hearing on pleas challenging the constitutional validity of Article 35 A pertaining to Jammu and Kashmir to the last week of August. The crucial hearing was adjourned as Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, one of three judges in the bench hearing the case, was not present in the court on Monday, said CJI Dipak Misra.
"The petitions on Article 35 A will now be heard in the week commencing August 27," Misra said. The three-judge bench had been hearing the case to decide whether the issue of Article 35 A has to be referred to a constitutional bench. "We will only have to see whether Article 35 A goes against the basic structure of the Constitution," the Supreme Court said on Monday.
Meanwhile, a strike called by separatists in Jammu and Kashmir has crippled lives in the state. Life in Kashmir remained severely affected on Monday for the second consecutive day due to a complete shutdown called by separatists against the legal challenge in the Supreme Court on the validity of Article 35A. The two-day strike was called by the Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL)—comprising Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik.
The state government had on Friday moved an application before the Supreme Court and sought to defer the hearing of the Article 35A petitions, citing upcoming panchayat and urban local body elections.
Article 35A of the Constitution bars non-natives from owning property in the state and grants special privileges to the residents of the state. Article 35A was incorporated into the Constitution by a presidential order in 1954, stating all those living in Jammu and Kashmir at that time and also those who lived in the state for 10 years anytime since, would be considered as its permanent residents. A non-governmental organisation, We the Citizens, filed a petition in the Supreme Court in 2014 to repeal Article 35A on the grounds that it was "unconstitutional". We the Citizens has been linked to the RSS.
Earlier in May, the Supreme Court had deferred the hearing of Article 35A petitions, saying that Dineshwar Sharma, the interlocutor appointed by the Narendra Modi government, was making efforts to find a solution; in such a situation, passing an interim order would have proven futile, the Supreme Court opined.