New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury to visit Jammu and Kashmir to meet his party colleague and former MLA Mohammed Yusuf Tarigami in the state.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, however, directed Yechury to only meet Tarigami and not use the visit for any political purpose.
The bench said if Yechury indulges in any political activities, authorities are free to report them to the apex court.
Yechury had filed a habeas corpus petition challenging the detention of Kashmir politician and party general secretary Tarigami.
On August 9, Yechury and CPI general secretary D Raja were stopped at the Srinagar airport when they landed there to meet Tarigami and other leaders in the Kashmir Valley.
Before leaving for Srinagar, Yechury took to Twitter to announce his plans to go to Kashmir: "D. Raja and I are on our way to Srinagar on the 9.55 a.m. Indigo flight to meet Tarigami and our other comrades in Jammu and Kashmir."
The CPM leader had attached the picture of the letter he wrote to Governor Satya Pal Malik on Thursday seeking permission to meet his party leaders.
The Left parties have protested the revocation of Article 370 that gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir.
A delegation of Opposition leaders, including Yechury and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, had earlier expressed their intent to visit the Valley to gain first-hand experience of the situation following the abrogation of Article 370. The leaders, however, were not allowed by state administration officials to leave the Srinagar airport when they arrived there on August 24.
Gandhi later tweeted that the Opposition and the press had got a taste of the "draconian administration" and "brute force" unleashed on the people of Jammu and Kashmir, when they tried to visit Srinagar.
The delegation included Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma and K C Venugopal, Tiruchi Siva (DMK), Sharad Yadav (LJD), Dinesh Trivedi (TMC), D Raja (CPI), Majeed Menon (NCP), Manoj Jha (RJD) and D Kupendra Reddy JD(S).
The Valley has been placed under a security lockdown since August 5 when Article 370 was abrogated and Jammu and Kashmir was split into two Union Territories.
