The High Court on Wednesday granted one more week to the central and state governments to file objections to the pleas challenging the ban on civilian traffic along the Jammu-Srinagar national highway twice a week.
As soon as a batch of Public Interest Litigations (PILs)against the highway ban came up for hearing, state’s senior advocate general BA Dar told the court that the issue involved in these petitions has become asubject matter of a writ petition filed before the Supreme Court by vice-president Jammu and Kashmir Awami National Conference (ANC) Muzaffar AhmadShah.
He submitted that the consideration of the proceedingsbefore the High Court would come to a standstill as the writ petition has beenfiled before the Supreme Court on the same subject.
After considering the submissions of the sate counsel andperusing the order issued by the SC, the bench said it did not see anyrestraint issued by the Supreme Court for the court to proceed ahead in thesaid PILs.
In the wake of this observation, the bench turned down thesubmission made by Dar as “unfounded”.
The state counsel submitted that the government has filedthe reply to one PIL ( Shah Faesal’s) and added that replies could not be filedto the rest of the petitions. When the bench asked the counsel if thegovernment intended to adopt the reply in other PILs also, he said no, andsought time to file the same.
“One week’s time isreluctantly granted to the respondents to file reply,” the court said, listingthe case on May 3.
The court alsogranted one week to assistant solicitor general of India, Tahir Shamsi, to filethe response to the pleas on behalf of Union defence and home ministries.
The Court was hearing a batch of petitions of former IASofficer-turned-politician Shah Faesal, National Conference leader Ali MuhammadSagar, Peoples Democratic Party leader Naeem Akhter, Raja Faisal Zahoor,Shafaqat Nazir and Arif Javid Khan.