The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to stay the Centre’s reported decision to begin from October 31 the process of bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir into Union territories, observing that it can “put the clock back” if need be.

A five-judge constitution bench of Justices N.V. Ramana, Sanjay Kishan Kaul, R. Subhash Reddy, Bushan Gavai and Surya Kant, however, granted four weeks’ time to the government to file its response on a batch of petitions challenging the abrogation of the provisions in Article 370 that granted Jammu and Kashmir its special status and the proposed bifurcation of the state into Union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.

The court posted the matter for further hearing to November 14.

“This court can put the clock back, if we decide the matter in your favour. But we cannot hear the matter without getting a response from the government,” Justice Ramana, heading the bench, told senior advocate Raju Ramachandran, appearing for some of the petitioners.

The bench made the observations after Ramachandran repeatedly urged the court to stay the process of bifurcation.

The senior counsel argued that the batch of petitions would become “infructuous” and “irreversible” if the government was allowed to go ahead with the bifurcation of the state.

Ramachandran was referring to the presidential order issued on August 5 through which the Centre introduced the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, with the objective of bifurcating the state into Union territories.

Attorney-General K.K. Venugopal, assisted by solicitor-genera Tushar Mehta, said that since more than 10 petitions had been filed on the issue, the government needed time to file a counter-affidavit.