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Srinagar, Sep 23: The Supreme Court on Friday said that the petitions challenging abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution will be listed after the upcoming Dussehra vacation, Bar and Bench reported.

The matter was mentioned before Chief Justice of India (CJI) UU Lalit by Senior Advocate Prashanto Chandra Sen.

“Yes it will be listed after Dussehra break,” the CJI said according to the Bar and Bench report.

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

The plea mentioned today was filed by Dr. Radha Kumar, Gopal Krishna Pillai, Hindal Tyabji, Former Air Vice Marshal Kapil Kak, General Ashok Mehta, and Amitabha Pande.

According to the report more than 20 petitions are pending before the top court challenging the Central governments’ August 2019 decision to abrogate Article 370 of the Constitution.

After removal of article 370, which conferred special status to Jammu and Kashmir,  the State was split into two Union Territories, the Union Territory of Ladakh and the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir.

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

The report said 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. State of Jammu & Kashmir and Sampat Prakash v. State of Jammu & Kashmir.

Both these judgments were rendered by 5-judge benches and dealt with the interpretation of Article 370, the report said.

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, the Bar and Bench report said.