Application Seeking Statehood For Jammu & Kashmir Mentioned In Supreme Court For Listing

An application seeking directions to restore the statehood of Jammu and Kashmir in a time-bound manner within two months was mentioned in the Supreme Court on Thursday for listing.

Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan mentioned the matter before Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud seeking a listing of the application.  "There is an MA in the Article 370 matter, the implementation for conferring statehood...it has to be time-bound," Sankaranarayanan said. CJI agreed to consider the request.

The application has been filed as a Miscellaneous Application in the disposed of matter "In Re : Article 370 of the Constitution" in which the Supreme Court upheld the abrogation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir. In that judgment, the Court did not address the issue of the constitutionality of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act 2019, which converted J&K into a Union Territory, in view of the assurance given by the Solicitor General that the Statehood will be restored. The Court merely directed, "Restoration of statehood shall take place at the earliest and as soon as possible", without setting any timeline.

The applicants, college teacher Zahoor Ahmed Bhat and activist Khurshaid Ahmad Malik, stated that despite the assurance given by the Solicitor General that J&K's statehood will be restored, the Union has not taken any steps in that regard in the last eleven months after the judgment in the Article 370 case.

The Non-restoration of J&K's statehood violates the basic feature of federalism, contended the applicants. "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," they said.

The applicants said that the Assembly elections were held peacefully and it shows that there is no impediment in restoring statehood. "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," the application stated.

The application was filed through Advocate on Record Soyaib Qureshi.