Never in India's History Has A State Been Converted into A Union Territory: Sibal in Supreme Court

Never in the history of this country has a state been converted into a union territory, argued senior advocate Kapil Sibal before the Supreme Court’s Constitution Bench which on Wednesday commenced hearing petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the abrogation of Article 370 sections. “You can change the boundary of a state, you can bifurcate boundaries of a large state to make smaller states. But never in the history of this country has a state been converted into a union territory,” said Sibal.

However, Justice Surya Kant, who is part of the five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, remarked, “You can carve a Union Territory out of a state.”

“You can carve out but you can’t have all of Madhya Pradesh become a union territory one fine day,” said Sibal in response.

The exchange took place while the bench also comprising Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, and BR Gavai was hearing a batch of pleas challenging the 2019 Presidential Order taking away the special status accorded to J&K and its bifurcation into two union territories.

Sibal further contended that it’s historic that the apex court is hearing the matter after five years, and since five years there has been no representative government in Jammu and Kashmir. “Whether the will of the people of J&K can be silenced in this fashion?” he asked.

“It’s not in the remit of the Parliament to take a political decision to abrogate 370. Nobody can deny that people of J&K are an integral part of India. But there is a special relationship — there is a unique relationship drafted in 370 itself. You can’t jettison that except by following a process ordained by law,” Sibal said.

Senior advocates Kapil Sibal, Gopal Subramanium, Rajeev Dhavan, Dushyant Dave, Shekhar Naphade, Dinesh Dwivedi, Zafar Shah, CU Singh, Prashanto Chandra Sen, Sanjay Parikh, Gopal Sankaranarayanan, Dr Menaka Guruswamy, Nitya Ramakrishnan, and PV Surendranath are advancing arguments on behalf of the petitioners and other intervenors in the case.

Arguing from the petitioners’ side, Sibal said, “We stand on the premise that integration of Jammu and Kashmir with India was and will always remain unquestionable.”