Supreme Court to Review Applications for Jammu and Kashmir's Statehood Restoration
Supreme Court Set to Hear Statehood Applications
New Delhi: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a series of petitions on Thursday regarding the restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir in a timely manner.
According to the court's published schedule, a bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) B.R. Gavai and K. Vinod Chandran will address this issue on August 14, just a day prior to Independence Day.
Last week, CJI Gavai agreed to keep the petitions on the agenda after they were brought to attention by senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan.
One of the applications, submitted by Zahoor Ahmed Bhat and activist Khurshaid Ahmad Malik, argued that the ongoing delay in restoring statehood is significantly impacting the rights of Jammu and Kashmir's citizens and undermining the principles of federalism.
The petitioners claimed that the lack of a defined timeline for restoring statehood constitutes a breach of federalism, which is a fundamental aspect of the Constitution's Basic Structure.
In the ruling concerning 'Article 370 of the Constitution', a five-judge Constitution Bench, led by former CJI D.Y. Chandrachud, left unresolved the issue of whether Parliament has the authority to alter a state's status by converting it into Union Territories, based on a statement from Solicitor General Tushar Mehta indicating that statehood would eventually be restored to Jammu and Kashmir.
During the oral arguments, SG Mehta, the second-highest legal officer in the country, noted that the Union Home Ministry could not provide a specific timeline, indicating that it would take 'some time' to restore statehood in Jammu and Kashmir.
Nevertheless, the Constitution Bench, which included Justices S.K. Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, Gavai, and Surya Kant, instructed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to prepare for Legislative Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, as mandated by Section 14 of the Reorganisation Act, by September 30, 2024, and emphasized that 'restoration of statehood should occur as soon as possible'.
The bench upheld Ladakh's status as a Union Territory under Article 3(a) in conjunction with Explanation I of the Constitution, which allows for the creation of a Union Territory by detaching a territory from any state. In May 2024, the Supreme Court dismissed review petitions challenging its earlier ruling, asserting that there was 'no apparent error in the record' and declined to schedule the matter for open court.