In Jammu and Kashmir, the use of courtrooms to embarrass opponents while flooding the docket with counter-cases is a familiar tactic. From the pre-2019 age of dynastic dominance to the post-Article 370 order, judicial forums have too often served as arenas for buying time, shaping narratives, and deferring accountability. The result is delayed governance and a politics driven more by survival than by service.
Historically, mainstream parties such as the National Conference and the Peoples Democratic Party used legal challenges to resist central initiatives. Petitions against delimitation, assembly dissolutions, and President’s Rule clogged the courts and bought time amid militancy and public alienation. The abrogation of Article 370 in 2019 was a watershed. Supreme Court hearings turned into battlegrounds, and commitments on restoring statehood were made both to Parliament and the apex court. Yet implementation has lagged, inviting fresh charges of bad faith. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has recently cast the delay in statehood restoration as a betrayal of electoral promises. The BJP has hit back with sharp legal notices, including a ₹100 crore defamation suit alleging attempts to poach NC MLAs through money and statehood inducements — a familiar escalation in the judicial-political contest.
This hyperactivity of cases, counter-cases, and public legal threats points to a deeper problem. Dynastic outfits long accustomed to entrenched power now confront a changed reality of one-person-one-vote democracy, transparent delimitation, and Panchayati Raj empowerment. When mandates shift, the reflex is to litigate rather than to introspect. Overburdened courts inadvertently enable these delays. Challenges to land laws, reservation policies, and anti-corruption measures have dragged on for years, stalling progress in health, education, and tourism. Ordinary Kashmiris, who have endured decades of curfews and fear, pay the highest price.
The post-2019 picture — record tourist arrivals, declining militancy, and grassroots elections — offers a counter-narrative. Yet old habits persist. Charges of horse-trading and backdoor manoeuvring, and selective outrage over the role of senior advocates, show how personal ambition can eclipse public interest. The inconsistency is glaring: parties that once defended Article 370 as an identity shield now seek its partial restoration on the very expedited timelines they earlier resisted.
The lesson for citizens is to see past the propaganda. Genuine federalism demands accountability, not endless litigation. The ordinary Kashmiri, shaped by forty years of conflict, wants self-reliance rather than saviours. Civic awareness, informed voting, and demand for time-bound reform are what count. Judicial independence must stay sacrosanct, but weaponising it for political theatre erodes public trust.
As J&K pursues its statehood aspirations, history offers a warning: delays engineered in courtrooms eventually expose those who engineer them. Lasting peace requires moving beyond zero-sum games toward shared development. The judiciary’s task is to deliver justice, not to referee political immaturity in perpetuity. Kashmir’s youth, unburdened by the past, deserve a politics of delivery, not deflection.
