SC: If J&K statute key, why is Constitution silent on it? | India News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: If the J&K Constitution was so important, why was it never mentioned post-1957 in the Indian Constitution, the basic and primary document for the Union and the states? The Supreme Court on Wednesday posed this searching question as challengers to demobilisation of Article 370 persisted with the line of argument that the administrative autonomy that the erstwhile state of J&K had enjoyed under the 1957 state Constitution could not be curbed or reversed independently of the “will of the people of Jammu & Kashmir”.

A bench of CJI D Y Chandrachud and Justices Sanjay K Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, Bhushan R Gavai and Surya Kant said the provisions of the Indian Constitution have been applied almost in its entirety through Constitution (Application to J&K) Orders, but with no reference to the J&K Constitution. “Post-1957, neither the J&K government nor the state assembly ever recommended, nor the Union government thought of amending the Indian Constitution to bring in reference to J&K Constitution in the Constitution (Application to J&K) Orders,” the bench said.
Arguing for those questioning the validity of the August 5, 2019 decision of the Centre to scrap the special status of J&K and divide the territory into two UTs, senior advocate Gopal Subramaniam said Article 370 embodied the promises of autonomy and decision-making being vested with the people of J&K.