The Supreme Court of India.
Credit: PTI File Photo
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday said it will consider listing for hearing a plea seeking time-bound restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir.
Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for one of the applicants, asked a bench of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra to fix the matter for an urgent hearing, in view of the fact that the matter is very sensitive and important.
He said there is an application for conferring the statehood.
"It was noted (in last year's judgement) that it has to be time-bound," he said.
The bench said it would hear the matter as soon as possible.
The plea filed in the Supreme Court sought a direction to the Centre to restore statehood of Jammu and Kashmir in a time bound manner within a period of two months as per the assurance given by the Union government to the court.
One of the intervenors in the matter titled 'In re: Article 370 of the Constitution', Zahoor Ahmad Bhat, along with another person, filed the application before the court.
He claimed the non-restoration of the status of statehood of Jammu and Kashmir in a time-bound manner violated the idea of federalism which formed a part of the basic structure of the Constitution.
"It is of utmost importance that the status of statehood is restored so that the people can enjoy an autonomy in their individual identity and also play an important part in the overall development of the country," his plea said.
The Union government gave an assurance in this regard as recorded in the judgment of December 11, 2023, when the apex court rejected a challenge to validity of dilution of Article 370 of the Constitution.
If such a direction is not passed at the earliest, it would lead to grave harm being caused to the federal structure of the country, the plea said.