SRINAGAR — Two politicians and a journalist from Ladakh have moved an impleadment application to the Supreme Court in a plea challenging the constitutional validity of the Centre’s decision to revoke the special status of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, Bar and Bench reported on Tuesday.
An impleadment application is filed seeking permission to be made party in a case that is already being heard.
The three applicants Qamar Ali Akhoon, Asgar Ali Karbalai and Sajjad Hussain have filed the request in a plea filed in the Supreme Court in 2019 by National Conference leaders Mohammad Akbar Lone and Hasnain Masoodi.
Akhoon was the MLA from Kargil constituency in the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir Assembly before it was dissolved. Karbalai is a Congress leader from Kargil district in Ladakh, while Hussain is the editor of Greater Ladakh newspaper.
The application submitted that the Jammu and Kashmir (Reorganisation) Act, which annulled the special status, have “eroded the legislative and executive organs and have denied the constitutional rights” of Jammu and Kashmir.
“It imposes a dictatorial regime wherein the entire democratic process has been annulled and the inhabitants of the region have been left at the mercy of administrators who do not possess mandate of inhabitants of the region,” the application stated.
On August 5, 2019, the Centre had abolished special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, imposed a lockdown in the region, and divided the state into the two Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. Several political leaders were detained and curfews and internet blockades were imposed in the region.
Nearly two dozen petitions challenging the Centre’s decision are pending in the Supreme Court. In March last year, a five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme court had held that there was no need to refer the batch of petitions to a larger bench. The matter has not been heard since then.
