Art 370 petitioner must show allegiance to Constitution: SC

A person seeking to assert constitutional rights must be unequivocal about his allegiance to the Constitution and sovereignty of people of India, the Supreme Court emphasised on Monday, demanding a categorical affidavit from National Conference parliamentarian Akbar Lone pledging allegiance to the country's sovereignty after the court received complaints that Lone in 2018 raised "Pakistan zindabad" slogans in the Jammu & Kashmir assembly.

- Utkarsh Anand

Lone is one of the chief petitioners before the constitution bench, which is hearing a clutch of petitions against the 2019 abrogation of Article 370 that granted J&K special status and restructured the state into two Union territories.

"Do we take it that Mr Lone unconditionally accepts the sovereignty of India and that J&K is an integral part of India? When he invokes the jurisdiction of our court under Article 32 of the Constitution, he, therefore, has to necessarily abide and owe allegiance to the Indian Constitution," the five-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, told senior counsel Kapil Sibal, who represents the NC leader.