New Delhi
The Supreme Court will hear the petition on August 8 (Friday) seeking instructions to the central government to restore the state status of Jammu and Kashmir. Senior advocate Gopal Shankaranarayanan raised this petition before Chief Justice (CJI) VR Gawai and urged it not to be removed from the scheduled date (8 August) list. Justice Gawai accepted this request. The case is related to the cancellation of Article 370, under which Jammu and Kashmir had special status.
The petition has been filed as a mixed application related to the old case, in which the Supreme Court in December 2023, in its historic judgment, valued Article 370 to be valued. However, in that judgment, the Supreme Court did not comment on the constitutional validity of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act, 2019, as the Solicitor General assured the court that the state status would be “quick”. The court said at that time- “State status should be restored as soon as possible” but no concrete deadline was fixed.
The latest petition has been filed by college teacher Jahur Ahmed Bhat and social activist Khurshid Ahmed Malik. This petition has been filed through Advocate-on-Cords is Maqbool. The petitioners say that almost 11 months have passed since the Supreme Court’s decision, but the central government has not taken any concrete steps to restore state status, while the assembly elections in the area have also been concluded peacefully. Here, the high -level meetings on Monday have intensified speculation that the central government may start the process of restoring state status soon. On Sunday, the separate meetings between President Draupadi Murmu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah and the meeting of NDA MPs on Tuesday morning gave further air to these speculation.
Another important meeting held in the Parliament House complex on Monday attended Home Minister Amit Shah, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, IB chief Tapan Kumar Deka and Home Secretary Govind Mohan. However, no official information related to this meeting has been shared. Now the eyes are on the hearing of the Supreme Court of August 8, where it may be clear what roadmap is fixed to give state status to Jammu and Kashmir again.
