The petitioners criticised in the Supreme Court government's decision to end J&K's special status in August 2019 as a majoritarian action disguised as a legislative and executive action to overturn a constitutionally mandated arrangement.
Dushyant Dave, the lawyer for petitioner Rifat Ara Butt, claimed that the removal of J&K's special status was the result of a "majoritarian" NDA government's secret plan carried out through a non-political move disguising as an executive-legislative action, which is destructive of the federal relationship between India and J&K based on respect for one another and the grant of autonomy in internal affairs to people of the state.
A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices Sanjay K Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, B R Gavai and Surya Kant said, “Are you inviting the court to examine the wisdom of the government’s decision to abrogate special status for J&K by arguing that judicial review should reassess the political desirability of the government’s decision that continuance of Article 370 was not in the national interest?”
“But judicial review will be confined to constitutional violations. No doubt that this court has the jurisdiction to adjudicate anything that involves constitutional violation... but we surely are not equipped to deal with the wisdom underlying the decision,” the bench said. Dave, supported by lawyer Prashant Bhushan, said that the judgement was made arbitrarily without any supporting evidence, constituting a flagrant violation of the Constitution.
“The Union government with a majoritarian approach cannot rewrite either its political or constitutional history. Because BJP promised in its 2019 election manifesto to abrogate special status for J&K, it did so to please those who voted for it. But that does not make the decision constitutional,” Dave said.