Challengers to 370 move turn opener to tailender | India News

NEW DELHI: In Test cricket history, only five tail-enders have batted as openers but the challengers to Article 370’s abrogation replaced their opener, senior advocate Raju Ramachandran, with renowned lawyer Kapil Sibal at the eleventh hour and the scheduled opener is likely to become the tail-ender.

Preparing the list of dates, in a case like Jammu and Kashmir whose contentious political history dates back to the Lahore Treaty of 1846 and weaves through the Instrument of Accession of October 26, 1947, to scores of Presidential Orders till abrogation of its special status on August 5, 2019, is a painstaking task.
Ramachandran, who had argued the matter in detail before a five-judge bench in 2020 prior to the court being requested to refer the issue to a seven-judge bench that was rejected, had put in a lot of effort and burnt the midnight oil to come out with a compact list of relevant dates. All of it was copied into the written submissions placed on the court record on behalf of Sibal a day or two before the commencement of hearing on August 2.

Interestingly, the fivejudge bench led by CJI D Y Chandrachud had directed that all written submissions by counsel from both sides — the challengers and the defenders (government) — were to be filed before July 27. “The submission of documents and written submissions will be frozen as on July 27,” the bench had said while appointing Kanu Agrawal and Prasanna S as nodal counsel for the two sides.
The list of arguing counsel for the challengers began with Ramachandran and did not contain Sibal’s name as of July 27. A few days before arguments on the Article 370 matter began, Sibal, who now appears for National Conference leader Mohammad Akbar Lone, stepped in and because of his seniority and experience, became the opening batsman for the challengers.
Ramachandran, despite devoutly attending to his terminally ill wife, worked without rest and had prepared the list of dates and the submissions which focused on the illegality of the dissolution of J&K assembly in 2018 and how it led to abrogation of Article 370 through an “illegal process”.
On being told that he was no longer the opener for the challengers, a miffed Ramachandran decided to give up the case, in which he has been involved since 2020.