Top court to hear plea for J&K statehood restoration on Aug 8

The Supreme Court (SC) is set to hear on August 8 a petition seeking directions to the Centre for the restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir.

“The date (on the top court website) shows as August 8. Let it not be deleted,” senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan told a Bench led by Chief Justice of India BR Gavai and Justice K Vinod Chandran on Tuesday while mentioning a petition filed by college teacher Zahoor Ahmed Bhat and activist Khurshid Ahmad Malik.

CJI Gavai agreed not to delete the case from the court’s August 8 cause list. “The delay in restoration of statehood would cause serious reduction of democratically elected government in Jammu and Kashmir, causing grave violation of the idea of federalism which forms part of the basic structure of the Constitution of India,” the petitioners argued.

Bhat and Malik had filed their petition in October 2024, urging the top court to direct the Centre to restore Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood within two months. They submitted that holding Assembly elections in the Union Territory without restoring statehood would render the electoral process meaningless and would violate the principle of federalism, which they noted is part of the Constitution’s basic structure.

The BJP-led Central government has maintained that it is committed to restoring statehood to Jammu and Kashmir. In its landmark judgment on December 11, 2023, the Supreme Court upheld the Centre’s decision to abrogate provisions of Article 370 of the Constitution that granted special status to the erstwhile state. The court also stated that “restoration of statehood shall take place at the earliest”.

The five-judge Constitution Bench led by then CJI DY Chandrachud (now retired) had unanimously directed the Election Commission to conduct Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir by September 30, 2024, without waiting for the restoration of statehood. The elections were subsequently held in September–October 2024.

While upholding the creation of Ladakh as a separate Union Territory on security grounds, the top court had left open the constitutional question of whether Parliament can completely convert a state into a Union Territory, as opposed to merely carving one out of a state. This was in light of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta’s assurance that statehood would be restored to Jammu and Kashmir.

The Supreme Court dismissed petitions seeking a review of its December 2023 verdict in May 2024.