Express News Service
SRINAGAR: The Jammu and Kashmir standing counsel in the Supreme Court on Friday filed an application before the apex court seeking deferment of hearing on the pleas challenging Article 35-A, which grants special privileges to residents of the State.
In its application, J&K's standing counsel Shoeb Alam sought deferment of the August 6 hearing of the petitions on Article 35-A by the apex court.
He said the J&K government needs to prepare for the upcoming Urban Local Bodies (ULB) and Panchayat elections and therefore the hearing in the case scheduled for Monday should be deferred.
The SC is scheduled to hear four Public Interest Litigations (PILs) challenging Article 35-A's constitutional validity.
The first PIL was filed in a case in 2014 by a Delhi-based Non-Governmental Organisation, "We the Citizens". The SC later clubbed three other PILs on the issue.
The National Conference on Friday filed an intervention plea in SC seeking to be included as respondents in the petition challenging Article 35-A of Constitution of India.
A party spokesman said NC's senior leader Nasir Aslam Wani filed the intervention plea on behalf of the party through Advocate Adeeba Mujahid.
"We filed the intervention plea in Supreme Court today to fight against all machinations aimed at fiddling with the State's special status and unique political identity," Wani said in a statement.
In another significant development, over 300 lawyers of Jammu unanimously passed a resolution for strengthening and retention of Article 35-A.
The resolution was passed in a meeting held under the chairmanship of senior Advocate A V Gupta (Former President Bar Association Jammu) at Justice Vinod Gupta Bar Hall, High Court, Jammu.
After passage of the resolution, Gupta said if Article 35-A or Article 370 was scrapped, the State's accession with Union of India gets shaky.
Meanwhile, the protests against the attempts to scrap Article 35-A continued in Srinagar and other parts of the Valley.
The traders, separatist leaders, civil society members, business men and academicians vowed to safeguard Article 35-A.
The Valley has been witnessing near-daily protests against attempts to revoke Article 35-A while separatists have called for two-day shutdown on Saturday and Sunday.
