The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear the plea of the father of Mohammad Amir Magrey, one of the four persons killed in a gunfight in Srinagar’s Hyderpora area in November, reported Bar and Bench. Latief Magrey moved the court challenging a Jammu and Kashmir High Court order that stayed his son’s body from being exhumed.

Mohammad Amir Magrey was one of the four persons killed in an operation by security forces at a commercial complex in Hyderpora on November 15. The police had identified them as Pakistani militant Haider, hardware shop owner Mohammad Altaf Bhat, dentist-turned-entrepreneur Mudasir Gul and Magrey, who worked at Gul’s office.

The bodies of the dead were not handed over to their families. On November 16, they were buried in the Wadder Payeen graveyard in Kupwara district.

While the police had claimed Magrey was a militant, his family has maintained he was innocent.

On Friday, senior Advocate Anand Grover, representing Latif Magrey, sought an urgent listing of the petition before Justices CT Ravikumar and Sudhanshu Dhulia.

“Everyday the body lies on earth,” the petition said, Live Law reported. “I must get the body and perform rituals. Your lordships may list it on Monday and allow me to take my chance.”

The plea also said that Mohammad Amir Magrey’s body deserves a decent burial, Bar and Bench reported.

“Even if it is accepted for sake of argument that the petitioner’s son was a confirmed terrorist, it makes no difference inasmuch he is entitled to a decent burial and last rites as per his religious practices under Article 21 [right to life and liberty] and Article 25 [freedom to practice and propogate religion] of the Constitution,” the petition added.

The vacation bench agreed to the request and listed the petition for hearing on Monday.

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The hearings

Latif Magrey had moved the Jammu and Kashmir High Court in December seeking his son’s body to be handed over so that a burial as per rituals can be done.

On May 27, Justice Sanjeev Kumar accepted the plea and directed the Jammu and Kashmir administration to exhume Magrey’s body and send it to his native village in Ramban.

“The respondents [Jammu and Kashmir administration] can make appropriate arrangements to ensure that law and order situation does not get vitiated in any manner,” the order stated.

The court had also asked the administration to not delay the exhumation as the body must have decayed.

“However, if the body is highly putrefied and is not in deliverable state or is likely to pose risk to public health and hygiene, the petitioner and his close relatives shall be allowed to perform last rites as per their tradition and religious belief in the Wadder Payeen graveyard itself,” the court ordered.

But the Union Territory opposed this order, Live Law reported.

Advocate General DC Raina, appearing for the Union Territory, contended that a relief cannot be granted based on scientific analysis of the body, which envisaged that it will get putrefied in one month.

Justice Kumar’s order is self-contradictory as on one hand he refers to the body being decayed in the advanced stage, and on the other, he direthe government to exhume it, Raina said, Live Law reported.

On June 3, a division bench of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court stayed the order passed by Justice Kumar and listed it for hearing on June 28.