NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s top court Wednesday began hearing a clutch of petitions challenging the constitutionality of the legislation passed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in 2019 that stripped disputed Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood, scrapped its separate constitution and removed inherited protections on land and jobs.
The five-judge constitutional bench that includes the Supreme Court’s chief justice is simultaneously hearing a series of petitions challenging the special status granted to the region after its accession with newly independent India in 1947. Such petitions were filed before the 2019 changes.
The unprecedented move divided the region into two federal territories — Ladakh and Jammu-Kashmir, both ruled directly by the central government without a legislature of their own. The move’s immediate implications were that the Muslim-majority region is now run by bureaucrats with no democratic credentials and lost its flag, criminal code and constitution.
“The case is before the country’s top-most constitutional bench. We are optimistic as we know our case is very strong,” said Hasnain Masoodi, a Kashmir-based Indian lawmaker who was one of the first petitioners challenging the Modi government’s decision. He also served as a judge at Kashmir’s high court.
