SC refuses urgent hearing on BJP leader's plea challenging Article 370

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to grant an urgent hearing on a plea filed by lawyer and BJP leader Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, challenging the validity of Article 370 which provides special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

Upadhyay made a mention before a division bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and Indira Banerjee which said that the matter will be heard later.

The petitioner, while seeking an urgent hearing, submitted that the court had on November 16 last year directed the listing of the matter on April 2, 2019, but it could not come up as Justice Chandrachud was part of a Constitution bench.

To this, the bench asked him to mention his plea before Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi's court.

Upadhyay said that he had mentioned the matter before the chief justice in February when a direction was given that the petition be listed before an appropriate bench.

Justice Chandrachud then asked the lawyer to submit the mentioning memo to the court which will fix a date for the hearing.