The Supreme Court on Friday said that the petitions challenging the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution, which conferred special status on Jammu and Kashmir, will be listed after the upcoming Dussehra vacation, reported Bar and Bench.

The matter was mentioned before Chief Justice of India (CJI) UU Lalit.

“Yes it will be listed after the Dussehra break,” the CJI said.

The Court is closing for the Dussehra break on 3 October for a week. It will reopen on 10 October.

More than 20 petitions are pending before the top court challenging the Central government’s August 2019 decision to abrogate Article 370 of the Constitution, reads the report.

By abrogating the Article, the Centre had revoked the special status of the state of J-K. Subsequently, the State was bifurcated into two Union Territories, the Union Territory of Ladakh and the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

In March 2020, a 5-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme court held that there was no need to refer the batch of petitions challenging Article 370 to a 7-judge constitution bench.

This ruling had come after a few petitioners sought reference of the case to a 7-judge bench contending that there is a conflict between two judgments of the Supreme Court – Prem Nath Kaul v. the State of J-K and Sampat Prakash v. the State of J-K. Both these judgments were rendered by 5-judge benches and dealt with the interpretation of Article 370.

However, the 5-judge bench, which was hearing the case, had declined to refer the matter to a larger bench holding that there is no conflict between the two judgments, reads the report by Bar and Bench.