The Center has said that it will file a reply to the petitions demanding full statehood for Jammu and Kashmir. The Supreme Court has postponed the hearing for 4 weeks, giving time to the government. The petitioners say that the Center itself had given this assurance during the hearing of the Article 370 case. Then the Central Government had given an affidavit in the Supreme Court that it would again give statehood to Jammu and Kashmir.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appeared on behalf of the central government in the hearing held before the bench of Chief Justice Bhushan Ramakrishna Gavai and Justice K Vinod Chandran. He said that while taking a decision in this regard, all the incidents including Pahalgam will have to be kept in mind. The court accepted this argument. In the last hearing held on August 14, the Chief Justice himself had commented that any decision should be taken only after examining the ground reality.
Tushar Mehta also said, ‘A decision in this regard will be taken after talking to the Jammu and Kashmir government. The petitioners who have reached the court are more interested in showing the plight of Jammu and Kashmir to the world and defaming India. There has been a lot of development in the area since the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019. Common citizens are happy.
Many petitioners, including Zahoor Ahmed Butt and Khurshid Ahmed Malik, have said that in 2023, the Supreme Court had upheld the Central Government’s decision to neutralize Article 370. While giving the verdict, the court had recorded the assurance of the Central Government that Jammu and Kashmir would later be given statehood. Senior lawyers Gopal Shankaranarayan and Maneka Guruswamy appeared on behalf of the petitioners.
Keep in mind that Article 370, which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir, was made ineffective by the Parliament in August 2019. Also, the state was divided into 2 union territories, Jammu Kashmir and Ladakh. In 2023, a bench of five judges of the Supreme Court had justified this step.