After a delay of four years, the Supreme Court has said it will hear daily, from August 2, petitions challenging the Centre’s 2019 decision in Jammu & Kashmir of doing away with the special status of the state and dividing it into two union territories. In 2020, when the Court last heard the matter, the question was about referring the case to a larger bench, which the court refused. The lapse of time, though, does not take away from the importance of the case. The court’s verdict, whatever it may be, is bound to have ramifications at several levels. The questions raised in the petitions are of relevance for the entire country, not just J&K. For instance, during a period of Governor’s rule in a state where the House has been dissolved, can the Governor take on the powers of the elected assembly? Can a state be turned into a Union Territory? Can Members of Parliament drawn from all states represent the will of the people in one state? In the Supreme Court’s consideration of some other cases relating to Kashmir, the question of national security has loomed large.
It is significant that the Centre, which had already filed an affidavit earlier, offering a “comprehensive” rebuttal to the constitutional questions in the petitions, felt the need to submit a fresh one on the eve of Tuesday’s hearing. It has claimed that the relief being sought by the petitioners was “against the security and sovereignty of India due to the peculiar geographical situation of the region and peculiar security challenges arising therefrom”. It has also claimed in the affidavit that an “unprecedented era of peace and progress” has dawned in the Valley, and that “life has returned to normalcy in the region”. The Court has correctly pointed out that this has no bearing on the constitutional question.
And yet, taking the government’s assertions at face value, this, then, should be the perfect cue to hold assembly elections in the former state. J&K has been without elected representatives for five years. The Centre’s reluctance to hold elections even after its self-congratulatory submission to the court can only give credence to the suspicion that partisan political considerations, more than the interests of the people of J&K, weigh heavy on the Centre. The Supreme Court hearings should not offer yet another reason to delay the elections.