Mehbooba Mufti praises Dadri lynching case order, swipe seen at J&K high court rebuke

Mehbooba Mufti

• Mehbooba Mufti praised UP court for rejecting plea to close Dadri lynching case
• Surajpur court refused to drop charges against 14 accused in Akhlaq lynching
• J&K court rejects Mehbooba's PIL on transferring Kashmiri undertrials

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Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti on Wednesday praised the Uttar Pradesh fast-track court for rejecting the state government’s plea to close the Dadri lynching case. Her comments are being viewed as an indirect swipe at High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh that has told her off for “misusing courts to meet her political ends”.

A fast-track court in Gautam Budhha Nagar district’s Surajpur on Tuesday (December 23, 2025) rejected the Uttar Pradesh government’s plea to withdraw the prosecution case against the men accused of lynching Mohammad Akhlaq in 2015. Additional district judge Saurabh Dwivedi rejected the public prosecutor’s plea under Section 321 Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), which sought to drop charges against the 14 accused.

The former Jammu and Kashmir CM lauded the Surajpur court in Gautam Buddha Nagar for “standing up to power” amid “growing politicisation” of institutions meant for “safeguarding fundamental rights of people”.

The Jammu and Kashmir court on Tuesday dismissed a PIL by Mehbooba seeking the transfer of Kashmiri undertrials lodged in jails outside back to Jammu and Kashmir. The court chastised her for dragging the judiciary into “partisan” political agendas. PDP sources said the judgment had caused unease among the party rank and file, although they had issued no official statement.

The court said it cannot remain oblivious to the violent past, which the residents of Jammu and Kashmir have passed through, because of forces hostile to the unity and integrity of the country.

"In fact, the petitioner too recognises the special circumstances of Jammu and Kashmir, when in relief part of this petition, she states that the undertrials be detained in the prisons in U.T. of Jammu and Kashmir, unless the Jail Authorities furnish reasons before this court demonstrating 'unavoidable and compelling necessity' in exceptional cases. The detailing of such exceptional cases has been conveniently ignored by the petitioner," the court said.