Application seeking reinstitution of J-K's statehood listed in Supreme Court

Srinagar, Oct 17: The Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud Thursday agreed to consider the listing of the application seeking directions to restore the statehood to J&K.

The application seeks the restoration in a time-bound manner, Live Law reported.

It was mentioned by the senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan before the CJI that, "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.

Earlier, another senior Supreme Court advocate Kapil Sibal demanded the restoration of J-K's statehood.

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.

The court did not address the issue of constitutionality of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act 2019 in that judgment, as the assurance was 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 neglecting of J-K's statehood violated the basic feature of federalism, the applicants contended.

"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 Soyaib Qureshi.