The Centre on Thursday told the Supreme Court that the sovereignty of Jammu and Kashmir was temporary and the most important thing is consolidation of the country.

The court is hearing a clutch of petitions challenging various aspects of Article 370, which was abrogated by the Centre in August last year. The five-judge Constitution bench comprises of Justices NV Ramana,SK Kaul, R Subhash Reddy, BR Gavai and Surya Kant.

Appearing for the Centre, Attorney General KK Venugopal said, “In the Prem Nath Kaul judgement of 1959, these were the specific wordsused: ‘On 25.10.1947, the Maharaja signed an Instrument of Accession with India which had then become an independent Dominion’.”

He also read an excerpt from VP Menon’s book ‘Integration of the Indian States’ (1956) to highlight the discord between Pakistan and the Maharaja. “The purpose for this story of integration of the Indian states is toshow the consolidation of the country. I want to show that the sovereignty of J&K was indeed temporary. We are a Union of States,” Venugopal said. Menonwas an Indian civil servant who was the constitutional adviser to at least three British Viceroys.

The Attorney General also said that separatists were trained and sent by Pakistan to create havoc in Kashmir.

“The Maharaja had entered into a Standstill Agreement with Pakistan and Pakistan had in fact violated this. Truckloads of tribes mentrained in combat were sent by Pakistan to overtake the state. Maharaja hadasked for the aid of India due to the insurgents present in the state. Therewere criminal activities taking place and records even suggest that theseseparatists trained by Pakistan had been specially sent to create havoc,” saidthe Attorney General.

He then referred to the two past judgements of the SupremeCourt - Prem Nath Kaul (1959) and Sampat Prakash (1968) - on Article 370 whichhad been cited by the lawyers of the petitioners to transfer the case to alarger, seven-judge bench. The Attorney General said that there is no conflictin both the judgement (on Article 370) and the case shouldn’t be referred to alarger bench.

On Wednesday, senior advocate Dinesh Dwivedi, appearing forone of the petitioners, had told the bench that the issue needs to be referredto a larger bench as there is a dispute between two judgements which dealt withprovisions of Article 370.

Dealing with the Presidential orders of August 5 last year,Dwivedi had said that due to these orders issued under Article 370 (1) and (3),all provisions of the Indian Constitution have been applied to Jammu andKashmir.

“This virtually abolishes the Constitution of Jammu andKashmir. It’s a case of implied repeal where a Constitution has been repealedby an executive exercise of powers,” he argued. Dwivedi said the Centre haslimited powers to legislate when it comes to Jammu and Kashmir by virtue of theInstrument of Accession.

“Article 370 was the only tunnel of light connecting theCentre to erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. The Article 370 required thataction of government of India should have concurrence of Jammu and Kashmirconstituent assembly, which was dissolved in 1957 after framing the Constitutionof Jammu and Kashmir,” Dwivedi had said.

He had said the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir was notcreated under the Constitution of India or Article 370 and therefore J&Kconstitution cannot be repealed in exercise of powers under Article 370.