India’s top court to hear held Kashmir statehood plea

New Delhi: India’s top court will hear a plea for the restoration of Kashmir’s federal statehood later this week, court officials said Tuesday, as the region marked six years under direct rule from New Delhi.

The hearing, scheduled for August 8 in the Supreme Court, follows an application filed by two residents of the Muslim-majority territory, where a separatist insurgency has raged for years.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government in August 2019 revoked Kashmir’s limited autonomy and brought it directly under federal control.

The move was accompanied by mass arrests and a communications blackout that ran for months as India bolstered its armed forces in the region to contain protests.

The removal of Article 370 of the constitution, which enshrined the Indian-administered region’s special status, was challenged by Kashmir’s pro-India political parties, the local Bar Association and individual litigants.

The Supreme Court in December 2023 upheld removing the region’s autonomy but called for Jammu and Kashmir, as the Delhi-administered area is known, to be restored to statehood and put on a par with any other Indian federal state “at the earliest and as soon as possible”.

“We have moved an application seeking a definitive timeline for the restoration of statehood,” said the petitioners’ lawyer, Soayib Qureshi.

“It has been quite some time since the court asked for it and elections have also been successfully held.”

Last November, Kashmir elected its first government since it was brought under New Delhi’s direct control, as voters backed opposition parties to lead its regional assembly. But the local government has limited powers and the territory continues to be for all practical purposes governed by a New Delhi-appointed administrator.

Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since the neighbours were granted independence from British rule and partitioned in 1947. Indian security forces were deployed in force in the Himalayan territory on Tuesday, eyeing protests demanding the restoration of its special status.