Supreme Court to consider plea for restoring Jammu and Kashmir statehood

The Supreme Court of India (SC) on October 17 said that it will consider listing a plea seeking time-bound restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir, PTI reported.

This comes after senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan appealed for a “urgent hearing” to a bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra.

"There is an Miscellaneous Application (MA) for conferring statehood. It was noted (in last year's judgement) that it has to be time-bound," Sankaranarayanan told the bench, to which the CJI replied: “I will deal with it.”

Sankaranarayanan was urging the plea on behalf of his clients — Jammu and Kashmir academician Zahoor Ahmad Bhat and socio-political activist Khurshaid Ahmad Malik.

What Is The Plea?

The application stated that appropriate directions are "necessary" for the Centre to restore the statehood of Jammu and Kashmir "at the earliest, in a time-bound manner", according to an ANI report.

It also noted that despite the Solicitor General's assurance that J&K's statehood would be restored, the government has yet to take any steps in the past 10 months since the SC's judgment on the Article 370 case.

"If directions to restore the status of the Statehood of Jammu and Kashmir are not passed at the earliest by this court it would lead to grave harm being caused to the federal structure of the country," it added.

Supreme Court Upheld Abrogation of Article 370

On December 11, 2023, the apex court unanimously upheld the revocation of Article 370 of the Constitution, which accorded a special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.

In the hearing it had also ordered that state assembly elections be held there by September 2024. The court had also said that Jammu and Kashmir's statehood should be restored “at the earliest”.

(With inputs from PTI)