The Centre on Thursday told the Supreme Court that elections would be held soon in Jammu and Kashmir as the process of updating the voters' list was near complete and it was for the state and central election commissions to undertake the poll process, but declined to give a specific timeframe for restoring statehood to the region.

Solicitor-general Tushar Mehta told the five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud that the Centre was ready to conduct elections to the three-tier system —the panchayat, municipality and the legislature — in view of the improved law and order, besides overall development of the region following the abrogation of Article 370.

“The Centre is ready for elections in any time now. Till now, updating of voters' list was going on and is substantially done. The first election will be in the panchayats. District development elections have already taken place. The Leh elections are over, the Kargil elections are at the end of next month," the law officer said.

“The central government is ready for elections anytime. Till date, updating of the voters' list was going on, which is substantially over. There is some portion still remaining which the election commission is doing…. It is for the state election commission and the central election commission... to decide when to hold it and which election… is to be held first…,” Mehta told the bench.

Mehta, however, added: “I am unable to give an exact time period for the conversion to full statehood. Complete statehood may take some time, but Union Territory status is only a temporary phenomenon. As far as statehood is concerned, I have already made a statement before this court, apart from the statement of the home minister on the floor of Parliament. The Union Territory status is temporary...”

He was responding to the August 29 directions by the bench to the Centre to spell out the “road map” and a “specific timeframe” for restoring statehood to Jammu and Kashmir.

The bench is hearing a batch of petitions challenging the August 2019 decision of the NDA government to abrogate Article 370, which granted special privileges to the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for some of the petitioners, had some heated exchanges with Mehta after the solicitor-general pointed to purported development measures taken by the Centre to claim conditions were conducive for the smooth conduct of elections.

“What affected the conduct of elections earlier mostly was stone pelting and calls for bandhs and hartals…. Elections are already over in Leh. The Kargil Hill Development Council elections will be held by the end of this month,” Mehta said.

When Mehta listed data to bolster his claim of normality, Sibal objected on the ground that these were not germane to the issue being examined by the bench with regard to the constitutional validity of the scrapping of Article 370 provisions.