New Delhi, Aug 2: Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal on Wednesday submitted before the Supreme Court that integration of Jammu and Kashmir in India “is unquestionable, was unquestionable and will always remain unquestionable.”

 

A five-judge Constitution Bench of the top court on Wednesday started the day-to-day hearing of a batch of petitions challenging the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution that bestowed special status on the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir.

 

Sibal, who is appearing on behalf of the petitioners challenging the 2019 Presidential Order taking away the special status accorded to the erstwhile state, described the proceedings as “historic” and questioned the validity of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 splitting the erstwhile state into two Union Territories — Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.

 

“This is a historical moment in many ways. This court will be analysing why history was tossed out on August 6, 2019 and whether procedure adopted by Parliament was consistent with what democracy stands for? Whether the will of J&K people could be silenced in this fashion?,” he said.

 

 

He argued that people of J&K cannot be denied a representative form of government through a “diktat” of the Union government which is “inconsistent with our constitution. It is historic because it has taken 5 years for this court to hear this case and for 5 years there has been no representative government in the state of J&K,” he added.

 

Four years after the repealing of Article 370, the constitutional validity of the government’s move is been challenged by a slew of petitions in the Supreme Court.

 

 

“Before I start, I want to make one statement, we stand clear on the premise that the integration of Jammu & Kashmir in India is unquestionable, was unquestionable, and will always remain unquestionable…The state of Jammu & Kashmir continues to be a part of India. Nobody disputes it, nobody ever disputed it. Jammu & Kashmir is a unit of the Indian Union,” he said during the hearing.