Image Source: Agencies

Aug 26, 2025: The Supreme Court refused on Monday to move the hearing date for petitions to restore Jammu and Kashmir's statehood, pointing out that it was already scheduled for October 10. After a lawyer mentioned the matter for early listing, Chief Justice of India BR Gavai stated, "It is listed already on October 10. We are in the midst of a Constitution Bench hearing (on a Presidential Reference on fixing timelines for Governors and the President for assent to state bills)." “I am requesting the expedited listing of a petition for contempt regarding Article 370 abrogation.

Jammu and Kashmir would be given statehood, the lawyer told the Bench. On August 14, the Supreme Court asked the Centre to respond to petitions requesting instructions on how to restore Jammu and Kashmir's statehood, noting that the terrorist attack in Pahalgam on April 22 that killed 28 innocent tourists cannot be ignored. The CJI-led Bencj, responding to a petition filed by college instructor Zahoor Ahmed Bhat and activist Khurshid Ahmad Malik, sent a notice to the Centre and posted it for hearing eight weeks later. It served notice on a second petition regarding the issue that was submitted by Irfan Hafiz Lone.

Tushar Mehta, the Solicitor General, stated that "several considerations go into the decision-making process." Jammu and Kashmir will once again be a state, as stated by the BJP-led Central Government. “The delay in restoration of statehood would cause serious reduction of democratically elected government in Jammu and Kashmir causing grave violation of the idea of federalism which forms part of the basic structure of the Constitution of India,” the petitioners stated. Bhat and Malik had submitted a petition to the Supreme Court in October 2024, arguing that the results of the Assembly elections in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir would be meaningless without the state's restoration within two months.

The Supreme Court upheld the Centre's August 5, 2019, decision to abrogate provisions of Article 370 of the Constitution that gave special status to the former state of Jammu and Kashmir and stated that "restoration of statehood shall take place at the earliest" in its historic verdict on December 11, 2023.

A five-member Constitution Bench headed by CJI DY Chandrachud, who has since retired, had issued a unanimous order directing the Election Commission to hold elections in Jammu and Kashmir by September 30, 2024, prior to the state's return to its former self-governing status. In the months of September and October 2024, the elections were held.

In light of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta's statement that the Centre would restore statehood to Jammu and Kashmir, the top court had left open the legal question of whether Parliament can completely convert a state into a union territory as opposed to carving out a union territory from a state while upholding the creation of Ladakh as a separate Union Territory for security reasons. The Supreme Court had in May 2024 dismissed petitions seeking review of its December 11, 2023, verdict.