Article 370: SC permits Sitaram Yechury to visit J&K with a strict condition

New Delhi, Aug 28: The Supreme Court has allowed a Jamia Milia students to travel to Anantnag to meet his parents. The court has also ordered that he be given protection while travelling to Jammu and Kashmir.

While hearing a petition filed by Sitaram Yechury seeking permission to go to meet a party general secretary in J&K, the same was objected to by the Solicitor General Tushar Mehta. The SG said that this could be purely for political purposes.

Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi tells Yechury, 'just remember that you are going to meet a friend (Yousuf Tarigami) and will do nothing else." To Mehta's objection, the CJI said if he does anything else, you can stop him and report back. If a citizen wants to go to a part of a country, he must get access, the CJI also told the J&K government.

Yechury, then gave an undertaking through his counsel that he is going to J&K only to meet his party colleague. The court recorded that if Yechury does anything else, it would be construed as a violation of the court order.

The court was hearing a batch of petitions challenging the Centre's decision to abrogate Article 370, revoking the special status of J&K.

While the petition against the scrapping of Article 370 has been filed by advocate M L Sharma, National Conference MPs Mohd Akbar Lone and Justice (retd) Hasnain Masoodi have challenged the changes made in the constitutional status of J&K by the Centre.

They have also been joined by former IAS officer Shah Faesal and former JNU student leader Shehla Rashid and several others including eminent persons like Radha Kumar.