Overview

• Chief Justice Arun Palli said orders to constitute the Special Bench will be issued shortly after the plea was mentioned for early hearing by advocate Vrinda Grover.
• The application under Section 99 of the BNSS was filed by Kapil Kak, Sumantra Bose, Radha Kumar and Wajahat Habibullah to set aside the Home Department’s August 5 notification (S.O. 203).
• The government used Section 98 of the BNSS to forfeit 25 Kashmir-related titles for allegedly propagating false narratives and secessionism and contributing to youth radicalisation.
• The list includes works by authors such as Arundhati Roy, A. G. Noorani and Sumantra Bose, with several titles from major academic presses including Oxford University Press and Routledge.
• The petition cites Supreme Court precedents requiring reasoned orders that identify offending content and argues the notification merely reproduces statutory language; a related PIL was previously directed by the Supreme Court to the High Court.