NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court rescheduled the hearing on Sara Abdullah Pilot's petition seeking brother Omar Abdullah 's freedom from detention to Friday after Justice Mohan M Shantanagoudar recused from hearing the case on Wednesday.

As soon as the habeas corpus petition of Sara, who was present in the courtroom, was taken up for hearing before a bench led by Justice N V Ramana, Justice Shantanagoudar said he would recuse. Given the urgency of the petition challenging preventive detention, Justice Ramana ordered its listing on Thursday. But Sara's counsel Kapil Sibal requested for hearing on Friday, which the court accepted .

Referring to Omar Abdullah's political credentials, from being external affairs minister to J&K chief minister from 2009-2014, Sara's petition sought quashing of the "arbitrary and mala fide" detention order under J&K PSA, saying as her brother had been under detention since August 5, when Article 370 was abrogated, he could not have done anything to pose a threat to peace, warranting fresh detention.

She said her brother's public statements and messages posted on social media prior to his detention on August 5 "would reveal that he kept calling for peace and cooperation, messages which in Gandhi's India cannot remotely affect public order".

