File photo of the Indian Supreme Court
India’s Supreme Court on Monday, in a unanimous verdict, ruled that the special status of held-Kashmir was a temporary provision and upheld the August 2019 order abrogating Article 370 of its constitution, according to Indian media.
The apex court also directed the election commission to conduct elections in India-held Kashmir by Sept. 30, 2024. Reading out the operative part of a verdict reserved in September, Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud observed that the petitioners’ contention that the center could not take any decision during proclamation under Article 356 was not acceptable.
“Article 370 of the Constitution was an interim arrangement due to war conditions in state. Constituent assembly of Jammu and Kashmir was never intended to be permanent body,” he said and termed the petitioners’ arguments that the union government cannot take actions of irreversible consequences in the state during presidential rule as unacceptable.
According to the ruling, India-held Kashmir became an ‘integral’ part of the country as reflected in Articles 1 and 370 of its constitution. The CJI said that Article 370 was meant for constitutional integration of the region with the union and not for disintegration, and that the president could declare the said article null and void. At the same time, the ruling directed India’s election commission to take steps to conduct elections for held-Kashmir’s legislative by Sept. 30, 2024 and sought restoration of the region’s statehood as soon as possible.
The ruling also upheld the reorganization of Ladakh as a union territory. It further sought the establishment of a truth and reconciliation commission to probe human rights violations in the region by state and non-state actors since the 1980s.
According to the Indian Supreme Court, occupied Kashmir did not retain any element of sovereignty after joining India. It also said it did not need to adjudicate on the validity of the presidential proclamation in the region as the petitioners had not challenged it.
Ahead of the verdict, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti was put under house arrest. Another former chief minister, Omar Abdullah, said he was “disappointed” by the ruling, but not disheartened. “The struggle will continue. It took the BJP decades to reach here. We are also prepared for the long haul,” he wrote in a posting on X, formerly Twitter.
Senior Congress leader Karan Singh, meanwhile, noted that a section of the people in held-Kashmir “will not be happy with this judgment.”
In 2019, India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) revoked occupied Kashmir’s special constitutional status by repealing Article 370, which limited the Indian parliament’s power to impose laws in the state, apart from matters of defense, foreign affairs and communications. This move was seen by residents of Kashmir and the Government of Pakistan as an attempt to alter regional demographics by allowing people from the rest of India to acquire property in held Kashmir and settle there permanently.
A five-member bench of the Indian Supreme Court took up petitions challenging the decision, as well as the bifurcation of India-held Kashmir into two union territories, on July 11 and reserved its verdict on Sept. 5.