SC agrees to hear plea for time-bound statehood restoration in Jammu & Kashmir

The Supreme Court was approached with an application on Thursday, seeking an early hearing of a plea that demands the restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir within two months.
Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, representing the applicants, raised the matter before Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, requesting for an urgent listing. He emphasised that the restoration process needed to be time-bound, to which the CJI agreed to consider the request.
The application has been filed in the previously concluded “In Re: Article 370 of the Constitution” case, which was decided by a five-judge bench in December 2023. The ruling unanimously endorsed the Union government’s August 2019 decision to abrogate Article 370 that granted special status to Jammu & Kashmir.
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The verdict by the bench led by CJI Chandrachud called the abrogation the “culmination of the process of integration” of the erstwhile state into the Union of India. It declared the abrogation to be a perfectly valid exercise of power by the President, ruling that Article 370 was always meant to be a temporary provision.
The judgment had further directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to conduct polls to the J&K legislative assembly by September 30, 2024, and asked the Centre to restore statehood to the region “as soon as possible”.
The top court, however, chose not to give a ruling on whether the reorganisation of the state of J&K into two Union territories of Ladakh and J&K was constitutionally permissible, pointing at the Centre’s statement that statehood of J&K would be restored eventually.
Referring to the Centre’s previous statements, application filed jointly by college teacher Zahoor Ahmed Bhat and activist Khurshaid Ahmad Malik argue that the delay in restoring statehood is at odds with assurances previously given by the central government and undermines India’s federal structure. The application highlights that, despite a peaceful assembly election process that was recently concluded, no substantial steps have been taken to restore the region’s former status.
“The non-restoration of the status of Statehood of Jammu and Kashmir in a time-bound manner violates the idea of federalism which forms a part of the basic structure of the Constitution of India,” stated the plea.
Additionally, the applicants highlighted that recent peaceful assembly elections demonstrate the absence of security or violence-related obstacles to statehood restoration.
“Therefore, there is no impediment of security concerns, violence or any other disturbances which would hinder or prevent the grant/restoration of the status of Statehood to Jammu and Kashmir as had been assured by the Union of India in the present proceedings,” said the plea.
The application, which was filed through Advocate Soyaib Qureshi, underscores the applicants’ stance that the prolonged Union Territory status is unwarranted and calls for prompt action in accordance with the assurance provided by the Union of India in the earlier proceedings.
The National Conference (NC) emerged victorious in the recent elections, winning 42 seats in the 90-member assembly. The Congress and Communist Party of India (Marxist) secured six and one seat respectively, bringing the coalition’s tally to 49. The NC’s position was further strengthened with support from several Independent candidates and the sole MLA from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), pushing its numbers comfortably beyond the majority mark. Omar Abdullah was sworn in as the chief minister of the UT on Wednesday.
Following the NC’s electoral victory, party president Farooq Abdullah had last week emphasised the need for unity within J&K, declaring that healing the social divide would be a priority for the incoming government. He also reiterated the coalition’s commitment to pursuing the restoration of J&K’s statehood.