The Supreme Court has firmly stated that calls for restoring Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood cannot be separated from the recent Pahalgam terror attack. According to reports, the SC pointed to its wider impact on regional security.
The bench, led by Chief Justice BR Gavai, was hearing a petition that sought immediate enforcement of the Court’s December 2023 directive.
According to the order, statehood should be restored at the earliest opportunity following the Assembly elections. Those elections were held in September–October last year.
The National Conference, under the leadership of Omar Abdullah and allied with the Congress as part of the INDIA bloc, emerged victorious. It secured 27 of the region’s 42 seats to form the government.
Despite this, the petition demanded that Jammu and Kashmir be granted statehood within two months. It labeled the government’s delay in acting on the court’s order as a blatant “violation of India’s federal structure.”
Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayan, it is reported, pressed the court to consolidate all related petitions and schedule them for hearing. He argued that if the matter involved executive action, a separate bench should be constituted, and a concrete timeline established.
Chief Justice Gavai responded curtly, saying the government should be allowed to respond first. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the government, said he would seek the necessary instructions.
However, he questioned the timing of the petitioners’ demand. He reminded that the government had already assured statehood after the elections. He asked why the issue was being raised again.
Reports claimed him as saying that this was not the time to muddy the waters.
In August 2019, Jammu and Kashmir was divided into two Union Territories — Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh — after the abrogation of Article 370, which had given it special status. Since then, the government has repeatedly claimed that statehood would be restored at an appropriate time. However, it has never provided a specific timeline.
The Supreme Court, in 2023, ordered the Election Commission to conduct Assembly elections — the first since 2014 — as the region had been under President’s Rule.
Omar Abdullah recently addressed letters to leaders of all political parties, calling for a bill to be introduced in Parliament to reinstate statehood. He emphasized that the restoration of statehood was not a matter of charity but a necessary act of constitutional correction, warning that the precedent of reducing a state’s status could have dangerous ramifications.
The issue of statehood restoration had also been a central theme during election campaigns. The Congress, the National Conference, and other INDIA bloc parties had mounted pressure on the BJP to honor its commitment.
However, that political momentum shifted dramatically after April 22, when terrorists affiliated with Lashkar-e-Taiba’s proxy outfit, The Resistance Front, brutally murdered 26 civilians after interrogating them about their religious identities.
India claimed to possess conclusive evidence implicating both the Pakistan Army and its deep state in the attack. In retaliation, it launched Operation Sindoor — a series of precision military strikes on terrorist camps located in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
This sparked a severe counter-response from Islamabad, resulting in an 88-hour military conflict. The hostilities ceased only after Pakistan contacted India to request a ceasefire.
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