Plea challenging J and K Reorganisation Act dismissed

A division bench comprising Justices M Sathyanarayanan and N Seshasayee, on dismissing the plea moved by the Desiya Makkal Sakthi Katchi represented by its president ML Ravi as non-maintainable, said, “The petitioner, admittedly, is not a resident of the said State, and if at all any person is aggrieved by the abrogation and enactment, it could be the person who is a permanent resident of the then State of Jammu and Kashmir.”

The petitioner’s counsel, K Sakthivel, had submitted that the Union of India has abrogated Articles 370 and 35A by way of Presidential Order and also enacted the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 without the approval of the Jammu and Kashmir State Assembly and thereby reduced the said State into two Union Territories.

Also, expressing apprehension that the Union of India could adopt the same analogy in other States also, Sakthivel said the abrogation of Articles 370 and 37A and enactment of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, has been done without constitutional authority and thereby, impinged upon federalism and subrogated the basic feature of the Constitution of India. Hence, being a citizen of the country, the counsel argued that the petitioner was entitled to challenge the same and sought to entertain the writ petition.

However, the bench on holding that it is a well-settled position of law that the question whether a cause of action arose wholly or partly within the territorial jurisdiction of a High Court, must be decided only on the basis of the pleadings, said, “It is also brought to the knowledge of this court that a similar challenge has been made before the Supreme Court of India and the same is pending consideration before the constitution bench, which, also started hearing the matters.”

“In the light of the reasonsassigned above, this court is inclined to uphold the objections raisedby the Registry as to the territorial jurisdiction of this court to entertain this writ petition. In the result,the writ petition is rejected for want of territorial jurisdiction,” the bench added.