The Supreme Court on Friday gave the Centre six weeks to clarify its stand on a timetable for the restoration of Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood.
It, however, prima facie agreed with the government that issues such as security, in the context of the Pahalgam terrorist attack, needed to be factored into the final decision.
“There are issues that have to be considered, like the Pahalgam incident,” Chief Justice B.R. Gavai told senior advocate Gopal Sankarnarayanan, appearing for Zahoor Ahmad Bhat, an academic and one of three petitioners seeking the immediate restoration of statehood.
Justice Gavai made the oral observation after solicitor-general Tushar Mehta flagged the Pahalgam attack while saying the government was keen on restoring statehood.
Mehta said the people of Jammu and Kashmir had in general been happy during the six years since the 2019 constitutional changes, which took away the region’s statehood and special status under Article 370.
“More than 99 per cent of the people are happy,” he told the bench, which included Justice K. Vinod Chandran.
A verbal duel, however, broke out when Sankarnarayanan said that “Pahalgam happened under their (the Centre’s) watch”.
Mehta objected: “What does it mean, ‘their watch’? It is our government. I object to this type of statement. Who are these petitioners who are not considering the government (as) their government?”
Sankarnarayanan read out from a five-judge constitution bench judgment of 2023 that had, while upholding the abrogation of Article 370, recorded a statement from Mehta that said statehood would be restored to Jammu and Kashmir.
“Much water has flown after that,” the senior counsel remarked, to which the solicitor-general retorted: “Much blood too.”
Senior advocate Menaka Guruswamy, representing legislator Irfan Hafiz Lone who too has sought the restoration of statehood, questioned the idea of converting a state into a Union Territory.
Another senior lawyer, N.K. Bhardwaj, wondered whether the Centre could convert Uttar Pradesh, too, into a Union Territory (on security issues) merely because it shared a border with Nepal.
Justice Gavai later dictated an order granting the Centre six weeks to respond and recorded Mehta’s statement that elections had been held peacefully in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and an elected government was in place.
The court order also recorded Mehta’s statement that the region had witnessed incidents like the Pahalgam massacre and all these issues needed to be considered before taking the final call on the restoration of statehood.