Indian SC issues notices to Modi govt on Article-370, Kashmir press freedom

A five-judge bench of the country's top court will review Indian move on Article-370 in October

NEW DELHI: India’s Supreme Court said on Wednesday it would hear pleas challenging the Modi government order revoking the autonomy of occupied Kashmir in October, and allowed an opposition politician to visit the region that has been under lockdown for weeks.

India stripped Kashmir its special status this month, and also divided Jammu and Kashmir State into two, to the fury of many of its residents.

Supreme Court also issued a notice to the Centre on the plea by Kashmir Times Executive Editor, Anuradha Bhasin, seeking a direction for relaxing restrictions on the internet, landline, & other communication channels. SC sought a detailed response from the Centre within 7 days. https://t.co/QnWhasbDpf

— ANI (@ANI) August 28, 2019

More than a dozen petitions have been filed in India’s Supreme Court questioning the legality the action, which New Delhi said was aimed at developing the region at the heart of animosity with Pakistan for decades.

On Wednesday, a panel of judges headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, said the court would hear the petitions starting in the first week of October.



“How the court decides these cases will have a deep bearing on the destiny of democracy in India,” Suhrith Parthasarathy, a Chennai-based lawyer, said in an article for the Hindu newspaper.

The court also ordered the federal government to submit a response within seven days to a plea by Anuradha Bhasin, the editor of the daily Kashmir Times, who has sought a relaxation of a government ban on telephone and internet services in Kashmir since August 5.

Some landline telephone connections that were restored last week.

India said the restrictions in occupied Kashmir were necessary to maintain law and order, but the Kashmiri people have expressed frustration and anger over the lockdown.

Hundreds of Kashmiris have been queued up outside a government office in Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar every day to make calls outside the region.

The Supreme Court also allowed Sitaram Yechury, head of the Communist Party of India, to visit the disputed valley to meet his colleague, Mohammed Yousuf Tarigami, a former lawmaker who is among hundreds of political workers and activists that the government has detained since the crackdown began.



Yechury was turned back from Srinagar airport when he tried to visit his colleague on August 9.

The revocation of Kashmir’s special status in the constitution means people there will lose exclusive rights to property, government jobs and colleges places and open them up to all Indians.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has claimed the reform will open up Kashmir’s economy to the benefit of all.