National: The Supreme Court on Thursday (October 17) said that it will consider listing a plea seeking the “time-bound” restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir. Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan who appeared for the applicants urged a three-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud, Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra that the plea needed an urgent hearing.

"There is an MA (Miscellaneous Application) for conferring statehood. It was noted (in last year's judgement) that it has to be time-bound," the senior lawyer said.

"I will deal with it," the CJI said.

The fresh application was filed by Zahoor Ahmad Bhat, an academician, and Khurshaid Ahmad Malik, a socio-political activist, in Jammu and Kashmir.

On December 11, 2023, in a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court had unanimously upheld the revocation of Article 370 of the Constitution, which accorded a special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, in 2019 and ordered that assembly elections be held there by September 2024. The court had also said that Jammu and Kashmir's statehood should be restored "at the earliest".