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‘Petitioning SC is not illegal': Omar Abdullah on withdrawal of lecturer's suspension
Zahoor Ahmad Bhat was suspended on August 25, two days after making a Supreme Court appearance in favour of Article 370.
Petitioning the Supreme Court is neither illegal nor anti-national, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah said on Monday, welcoming the UT administration's move to revoke the suspension of a lecturer who supports the restoration of Article 370 in the former state.
“I think it is a good thing. His suspension was, I think, a violation of his fundamental right to seek justice from the Supreme Court. All he was doing was petitioning against what happened on the 5th of August. Petitioning the Supreme Court can neither be seen as something illegal nor anti-national. The fact that his suspension was raised by Kapil Sibal ji, and yesterday that was overturned, I think it is a good nothing,” Abdullah told PTI.
Zahoor Ahmad Bhat, a political science lecturer at Srinagar's Government Higher Secondary Higher School, was suspended by the Jammu and Kashmir administration on August 25, two days after he made a Supreme Court appearance in favour of Article 370.
His suspension was lifted on September 2, days after the apex court raised questions over the action taken against him, and directed Centre's top law officers to speak to Jammu and Kashmir lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha in this regard.
On August 2, a five-judge Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, began hearing a clutch of petitions challenging the Narendra Modi government's August 5, 2019, move to abrogate Article 370 of the Constitution of India; the article granted a semi-autonomous status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir and by withdrawing it, the government ‘integrated’ J&K with the rest of the country.
Also, as part of the abrogation, Jammu and Kashmir got spilt into the Union territories of J&K, and Ladakh. To maintain law and order in the wake of its decision, the government took several measures, including putting top politicians from the Valley under house arrest. As many as three former chief ministers were among those put under house arrest – Farooq and Omar Abdullah of the National Conference (NC) and Mehbooba Mufti of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
