‘Can Turn The Clock Back’: SC Declines To Stay Bifurcation Of J&K Into 2 Uts

A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to stop the Centre from carving out two centrally-administered union territories (UTs) out of Jammu and Kashmir, telling petitioners who have challenged the scrapping of Article 370 that the top court could always “turn the clock back”.

The constitution bench, which was set up last week by Justice NV Ramana, gave the Centre four weeks to respond to a bunch of petitions that challenged the move to scrap special status for Jammu and Kashmir. It will take up the case again on November 14.

According to the government order, the state of Jammu and Kashmir would be split into two union territories on 31 October: Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. Senior lawyer Raju Ramachandran, who is representing one of the 10 petitioners, had asked the five-judge bench led by Justice NV Ramana to hold its hearing before this month-end or stop the government from carving out two UTs.

The judges, however, made it clear that this would not be possible since it had to give the state and central governments adequate time to respond. “The court can put the clock back… But it cannot hear such a matter without getting a response from the government,” the bench ruled, pointing out that when the hearing on merits begins, the petitioners would want to debate everything.

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