The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld National Conference’s right to use plough as its party symbol for the polls in Ladakh, paving the way for Kashmir’s biggest party to retain its political imprint in the Union Territory.

The apex court also set aside the notification issued by the Ladakh administration on August 5 for the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council election in Kargil, which was scheduled on September 10, and directed it to issue a fresh notification within seven days.

The bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Ahsanuddin Amanullah said the National Conference was “exclusively allotted” the plough symbol while dismissing a plea by the Ladakh administration opposing the allotment of the symbol to the party and imposed a cost of Rs 1 lakh on it.

National Conference is a major political player in Ladakh but the centrally-run administration tried to ensure that the party was denied the right to use its election symbol.

Many in Kashmir saw it as an attempt to remove the footprints of a Valley- based party in the region after having carved it as a Union Territory from the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

“We are thankful to the Supreme Court for giving us justice…They (Ladakh administration) tried to deprive us of our symbol… It certainly took time, but we got our symbol back. We are happy,” former chief minister and Nantional Conference vice-president Omar Abdullah told reporters here.

“The Supreme Court did not like the actions of the (Ladakh) administration and imposed a penalty of Rs 1 lakh, which shows that the Ladakh administration repeatedly wasted the time of the courts,” he added.

Earlier, Omar posted on X that the BJP, “ably assisted by a totally biased Ladakh administration”, did everything possible to deny them their right.

On August 9, the Ladakh administration had filed an appeal against an order of the High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh that had asked it to notify the allotment of the plough symbol to National Conference for the hill council elections.