Mufti’s axe falls on 63 ‘deadwood’ officials

Several engineers, KAS officers, MD of J&K SRTC shown the door

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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SRINAGAR, Jul 1: Four months after it assumed office, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s PDP-BJP government in Jammu and Kashmir has terminated the services of as many as 63 officials who include Managing Director of J&K State Road Transport Corporation, several engineers, KAS officers and around 30 junior officials from different services.

Addressing a news conference here on Wednesday, senior PDP leader and Minister of Higher Education Naeem Akhtar, who also functions as the State government’s authorised spokesperson, said that the 63 officials had been sent on forced retirement on the basis of a performance review by a five-member high level committee headed by Chief Secretary Mohammad Iqbal Khanday.

“Now on, the performance review would be a regular feature”, Mr Akhtar said. He elaborated that Chief Minister’s Principal Secretary Bhat Bhushan Vyas, Principal Secretary Home, Commissioner-Secretary General Administration Department (GAD) Gazzanfer Hussain and Law Secretary Mohammad Ashraf Mir were other members of the committee.

Akhtar said out of the 63 officers and official, whose services have been terminated, 25 involve trap cases by various anti-graft bodies, 11 include cases involving disproportionate assets and 27 are miscellaneous cases.

He said the sacking of these officers and officials involved invoking of the existing clause of J&K Civil Services Rules , as per which the Government had to assess the performance of an officer/official on completion of 48 years of age or 22 years of service.

“By today’s action the Government has just reiterated the essentiality of this clause,” he said and added that performance review of the civil servants would be henceforth a permanent and regular feature in administration and the services of the officers/officials, whose performance was not upto the mark or who had integrity issues, would be dispensed with.

Akhtar said this was a part of the larger process of infusing accountability and transparency in governance. He said the Government was also going to strengthen State Accountability Commission (SAC) to ensure transparency at political levels.

Even as the 63 officials sacked in the first go include around 30 junior officials like Deputy Forester Tariq Irshad Handoo who has lost his job for allegedly accepting the bribe of Rs 500 from a timber dealer in Doodh Ganga Range in Chadoura area several years back, MD J&K SRTC Jagmohan Sigh Tandon, former Deputy Transport Commissioner Bhumesh Sharma, DGM J&K PCC Suresh Kumar Rekhi, Chief Engineer CVPP Ltd Jammu KK Gupta, Executive Engineers Sher Mohammd Khan, Mohammad Shafi Bhat, Ghulam Nabi Dar, Abdul Rashid Shah and Ravi Kumar Sharma besides Medical officer Dr Riyaz Dar, Dr Fayaz Ahmad Banday and Dr Manoj Bhagat, Chief Accounts Officer Mushtaq Ahmad Baba and KAS officers Mohammad Yousuf Bhat (former CEO of Sonmarg Development Authority and Pahalgam Development Authority) and Babu Ram have also been removed from government service.

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How fresh ambulances worth Rs 10 cr decayed in Omar’s, Mufti’s Govt

Director Health Kashmir procured 125 ambulances out of NRHM funds but these were left unutilised for 14 months even as patients died on way and hospitals craved for vehicles

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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SRINAGAR, Jun 30: Hours before Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s maiden visit to Budgam’s Aga Syed Yousuf Memorial District Hospital on June 10, security barricades kept a part of the district headquarters out of bounds for ordinary civilians. A poor couple from Bugchhulla village carried a 9-month-old baby for treatment. Entry was denied by Police and security columns towards the hospital. Some Good Samaritans tried to call an ambulance but they were told ‘we have none’. By the time, CM concluded his visit, the infant was dead. Drivers at the hospital collected an amount of Rs 800 by donation and sent the body by a hired Tata Sumo back to the mother’s parental home at Nengarpora, Khansahab.

There are 8 drivers but only three ambulances at Budgam’s District Hospital (DH). A well-equipped Mobile Medical Unit [JK01K-4881], which the drivers wrongly call ‘critical care ambulance’, has been lying defunct on the premises ever since one each of such was procured under the initiative of then Health Minister Sham Lal Sharma in 2009-10 for all district hospitals. Its ECG and other equipment have disappeared. “It hasn’t been utilised and has become non-functional over the years”, says Dr G.M. Dar who was brought in recently---first as MS and then as Chief Medical Officer (CMO).

Out of the three ‘workable’ ambulances, the best one [Eeco JK04B-8226] has been reserved by the new MS Dr Gazala Tabbasum for her personal use. She travels by it daily from and back to her Pirbagh residence.

In CMO’s own residential block of Soibug, there are four drivers and no ambulance. A dilapidated van runs as ambulance for Sub District Hospital [SDH] Soibug and its ancillary Public Health Centres [PHCs] of Wadwan and Wahabpora.

For Budgam district’s one DH, 9 SDHs, 40 PHCs, 30 ante-PHCs and 141 Sub Centres, there are total of 51 ambulances. Drivers, patients and attendants---even doctors off-the-record---insist that the requirement is over 100. However, Dr Dar maintained that the district had a shortfall of 19 ambulances.

This is just a sample. All other districts in Kashmir have the same story: somewhere only drivers, somewhere only ambulances, somewhere neither. With the Medical Officers, CMOs and Medical Superintendents crying for ambulances, nobody moved in the three successive regimes of Omar Abdullah, Governor N.N. Vohra and Mufti Mohammad Sayeed in the last around two years. “Neither Sham Lal Sharma (former Health Minister) nor Saleem-ur-Rehman (who has been unceremoniously removed by Mufti’s government earlier this month and replaced by Dr Sumir Matoo) felt accountable to anybody. Ex-CM’s Political Secretary Tanvir Sadiq had to make a hundred calls to secure one ambulance for an area in Srinagar”, said an insider.

Well placed official sources in Health & Medical Education Department revealed to STATE TIMES that in 2013-14, Government of India-funded National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) provided an amount of Rs 15.30 cr to Directorates of Health Services in Kashmir and Jammu for total replacement of the old Eicher ambulances by the upgraded Force Traveller [FT]. It was decided to procure 125 FT ambulances [(9+D) 3350 mm wheel base with cold start device upto minus 8 degree Celsius) for Kashmir and 75 for Jammu.

After a process by the facilitator State Motor Garage (SMG), supply order was placed with Force Motors Ltd which sent the requisitioned consignments through its Jammu-based dealer Republic Motors. On May 29, 2014, Director SMG, G A Sofi, informed DHS Kashmir and Jammu to lift the ordered supplies. At the rate of Rs 7,65,439 each vehicle, payment of Rs 15,30,87800 was released for procurement of the 200 Force Traveller ambulances through SMG.

Even as all the 75 ambulances for Jammu division were lifted on time and distributed among different hospitals, DHS Kashmir did not respondent to Director SMG’s May 29, 2014, communication for several months. A high level committee headed by Commissioner-Secretary Health and Medical Education, which had a number of senior officials as members, failed to act.

The SMG officials revealed that the ambulances for Kashmir started arriving in earlier this year and these were parked at different places---Provincial Medical Store Barzullah, State Health Transport Organisation (SHTO) Bemina, Kashmir Nursing Home Sonwar etc. As the Medical Officers kept begging for the vehicles, the ambulances kept decaying under the vagaries of weather. Though the warranty stands for three years, officials revealed that failure to maintain a schedule of preliminary operation and servicing renders the warranty void.

The first movement was witnessed last week only when the SHTO authorities decided to shift the idle ambulance fleets due to the fresh flood threat to safer places, including PHC Ompora Budgam, where STATE TIMES captured 10 of them on camera on Tuesday. Last fortnight over 50 of these were found decaying at Barzulla.

Sources said it was only after Saleem-ur-Rehman’s attachment that the process of distributing the decaying brand new ambulances started.

The incumbent DHS Kashmir, Dr Sumir Matoo, said that the ambulances were currently being supplied to different hospitals. He said that he would be able to speak on this subject only after Wednesday’s district development board meeting. Sources insisted that just 10 to 20 ambulances had been distributed in June.

Deputy Director Headquarters at DHS Kashmir Dr Abdul Kareem, who is also holding the charge of SHTO, said: “The Honourable Minister and Director had to take a call. It was their responsibility to provide the fleet to the needy hospitals. My role was limited to obeying their orders”. He admitted that over 100 brand new ambulances were left unnecessarily unutilized for about a year and were not supplied to the requisitioning units. Asked why, Dr Kareem said: “First there were floods, then elections and Moral Code of Conduct, then change of regime, then transfer of Director”.

Official sources dismissed all these reasons as “lame excuses”. They said that in any other Indian State, Police would be forced to file criminal cases against the delinquent officials whose carelessness and non-accountability made hundreds of patients die before reaching hospital for want of an ambulance.

Mission Director NRHM Dr Yashpal Sharma told STATE TIMES that “according to my information” all these ambulances had been provided to the hospitals except 25 each in Kashmir and Jammu which had been kept for “upgradation to critical care ambulances”. When Dr Kareem’s admission was pointed out to him, Dr Sharma said, “Then the Director Health has provided wrong information to the administrative Secretary”. H&ME sources asserted that it was a known practice in the department that the senior officers and Minister incharge keep a reserve of the vehicles and ambulances. “They keep it for obliging certain Ministers, MLAs and MPs. It helps builds up their PR and helps them remain in the good books of the powers that be”, said a senior officer.

[To be continued tomorrow]

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Storm in NC over Sajjad Lone statement

Omar calls meeting as Sagar seeks action against Akbar Lone etc.

 

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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SRINAGAR, Jun 29: National Conference General Secretary Ali Mohammad Sagar and former Minister Chowdhary Mohammad Ramzan have taken exception to their own party colleagues’ act of disowning a statement that castigated the Peoples Conference Chairman and Cabinet Minister Sajjad Lone over his welcoming RSS to Kashmir. With the storm brewing up in the NC, acting President and former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has called an emergency meeting at his residence here on Tuesday.

Informed sources revealed to State Times that all the six leaders---Mohammad Shafi Uri, Shariefuddin Shariq, Mir Saifullah, Qaisar Jamsheed Lone, Mohammad Akbar Lone and Chowdhary Mohammad Ramzan---in whose name a statement against Sajjad Lone had been issued on last Friday, have been asked on behalf of Omar to attend the meeting at his Gupkar Road residence at 1600 hours on Tuesday.

According to these sources, the meeting has been called for seeking an explanation from Mohammad Akbar Lone (MLA Sonawari and former Minister of Higher Education), Mohammad Shafi Uri (former MP who has functioned as Minister for decades), Shariefuddin Shariq (former MP), Mir Saifullah (former Minister of Law) and MLC Qaisar Jamsheed Lone as to why they publicly distanced from a statement issued by the NC spokesperson on authorisation of the General Secretary Ali Mohammad Sagar.

While as Omar had caught Sajjad on a wrong foot and engaged him in a controversy on Twitter, Akbar Lone was the first who told media that he had no knowledge of the statement issued against Sajjad. He told a news agency that the statement had been issued without his knowledge and consent as he was busy on that particular day in the District Development Board meeting of Bandipore district.

This apparently prompted Mohammad Shafi Uri, Saifullah, Shariq and Jamsheed Lone to follow. In their separately issued statements they invariably distanced from the NC press note, denting the credibility of the party spokesman Janiad Azeem Matoo.

Sources said that Ramzan and Sagar agitated the matter with Omar who was currently in New Delhi. He conveyed his decision to fix the meeting at his residence in Srinagar on Tuesday. One of the well-placed sources in NC disclosed that both, Ramzan as well as Sagar, have sought disciplinary action against Akbar Lone and others and even threatened to resign from their party positions.

Sources said it was General Secretary Sagar who called Ramzan on Friday and desired him to sign a statement against Sajjad. Sagar wanted the statement to go in the name of the leaders from Sajjad’s Kupwara district as the previous statement on alleged desecration of Jamia Masjid by Police had been released in the name of spokesman. After a deal of discussion with Akbar Lone and others, the NC statement against Sajjad was issued in the evening.

“Akbar Lone was eager to issue the statement. He conveyed his consent before the statement was issued. It came as a surprise to Sagar, Ramzan and others when Lone gave relief to Sajjad and together with four others discredited their own party”, said a senior NC leader. He alleged that Akbar Lone had maintained his links to Sajjad since the days of his association with PC. “But more surprising are the statements of Shafi Uri and Mir Saifullah. They have salvaged Sajjad from the whirlpool of controversy”, he added.

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VOK files final charge-sheet against 75 Revenue, J&K Bank officials for Rs 22 cr embezzlement

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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SRINAGAR, Jun 29: Nearly five years after it surfaced dramatically in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district, Vigilance Organisation has concluded the investigation and filed the final charge-sheet in Rs 22 crore National Highway land compensation scam against 75 officials of the State Revenue Department and Jammu and Kashmir Bank Ltd.

Pending sanction to the prosecution of 14 bank officials from Chairman of J&K Bank Mushtaq Ahmad, officials of the Police Station of Vigilance Organisation Kashmir (VOK) had filed charge sheet against 61 officials of the Revenue Department in the court of Special Judge Anti-Corruption Haq Nawaz Zargar on April 28 this year. Following receipt of the prosecution sanction from the Chairman, the VOK officials on Monday filed the final charge-sheet under section 173 Criminal Procedure Code involving 14 J&K Bank officials in addition to 61 Revenue officials in the same court in Pulwama.

The VOK sources told State Times that the charges in embezzlement of Rs 22,11,89400 had been established against 76 officials. One of them expired during the course of investigation. The sizable amount of money had been fraudulently withdrawn from the accounts of Collector Land Acquisition Pulwama Adil Rashid Naqash out of the funds meant for compensation to the land owners for four-laning of Srinagar-Jammu National Highway.

Sources said that VOK has constituted a special team of prosecutors for pursuing the embezzlement case in the court as all documentary evidences had been collected and statements recorded.

Case FIR No. 37/2010 U/s 5(1) (c) 5(1) (d), 5(2) J&K P.C. Act 2006 R/W 120-B, 409, 468, 471 RPC was registered in the VOK Police Station on November 8, 2010 on the reference of the State government. The case was initially investigated by Police Station Awantipora through FIR No. 174/2010 registered on October 5, 2010.

The SIT headed by VOK’s SP incharge of Anantnag, Pulwama and Budgam districts conducted a fresh investigation. Charges were established against 75 officials including Collector Naqash. On receiving sanction to the prosecution from State Revenue Departments, challan was filed in April 2015 against 61 Revenue officials. Sanction to the prosecution of 14 J&K Bank officials came from the Chairman of the bank recently.

Sources said that pending the VOK investigation, the bank’s Vigilance Wing held its own inquiry into the allegations against 14 officials including managers of Awantipora and Letapora branches. While as the services of some of the accused bank officials were terminated, others were made liable to different punitive and disciplinary actions.

The VOK investigation revealed that the accused Collector Adil Rashid Naqash, Land Acquisition Clerk of DC office Pulwama Parvez Indrabi, officers and officials of J&K Bank Awantipora and Letapora, including then Branch Head of Lethpora in league with the private accused person Farukh Jahanzeb alias Rinku S/o Ghulam Mohi-ud-din Bhat alia Mahi Pandit R/o Awantipora, Showkat Ahmad Dar and others hatched a conspiracy and in league with each other managed to embezzle Rs. 22,11,89,400/- from the official accounts of Collector.

The account had been opened illegal in business unit Letapora of J&K Bank over a period of 18 months with full knowledge and active connivance of the officials.. The money was initially transferred to the accounts of the private persons on the basis of fake and fraud authority letters and even without any authority. The money was invested in illegal purchasing and selling of lands.

After the Government accorded sanction for launching prosecution against the public servant, the challan of the case comprising of approximately 2000 pages was produced before the court on Monday.

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PDP MP Karra calls Mufti’s Police “law unto itself”
 
Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
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SRINAGAR, Jun 23: Outsmarting the Opposition National Conference as well as the separatist conglomerate Hurriyat Conference, senior PDP leader and Lok Sabha member from Central Kashmir, Tariq Hameed Karra , has strongly condemned what he called the unwarranted police action inside the historic Jamia Masjid in Srinagar.
 
In a statement issued late on Saturday night, Karra  held the Police responsible for “direct firing of tear-smoke shells inside the Masjid and that too during Ramadan”. He called it “a highly condemnable and deplorable act”. He demanded the police personnel involved in this sacrilegious act should be taken to task for hurting the sentiments of the people.
 
Karra said the police seem to have become “an authority unto itself in Kashmir” especially after the 2010 unrest “as none of the cops had to face legal action for the killing of around 120 civilians including teenagers on the streets of the Valley”.

“Ironically even the political executive now seems to be subservient to the haughtiness of the police as they are watching the situation helplessly,” he said and added that while police seems to have” failed in performing its routine duties including tackling crime and streamlining traffic, the force has mastered the art of letting loose reign of repression on the hapless Kashmiris even on minor provocations”.
 
Karra also condemned the police action inside the Kashmir University campus and accused the police of turning the situation back to early nineties by such actions. He also demanded immediate release of the arrested student of Pulwama district who has been detained for his alleged involvement in a militancy related incident. The University campuses have witnessed protest demonstrations against the student’s arrest and demanded his release.
 
Karra’s assertion is significant in the sense that none other than his party PDP’s chief patron and Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed is holding the Home portfolio. 

Karra called upon the State’s political executive to come forward with the much-needed assertion of authority on issues pertaining to the sentiments of the people and ensure a turnaround in the security scenario and developmental scenario as was visible on the ground after 2002 elections.

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Separatists unite on shutdown over ‘desecration’ to Kashmir mosque

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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SRINAGAR, Jun 26: Even as Police on Friday took on the violent demonstrators on premises of the summer capital’s largest mosque after the congregational prayers, separatists have yet again joined hands to enforce a protest shutdown in Srinagar on Saturday.

On last Friday---the first of the holy month of Ramazan---most of the Kashmiri separatist leaders had been detained either at their residences or the neighbouring Police Stations as they had, after years of split, issued a joint call for a mass march to Sopore to protest six civilian killings by unidentified gunmen in a row. The bandh had a remarkable impact.

However, a week after, authorities lifted restrictions and permitted Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the cleric-politician and Chairman of Hurriyat Conference’s moderate faction, to deliver his weekly sermon at the prayers at Jamia Masjid. Thousands of devout Muslims attended the sermon followed by the afternoon (Zuhar) prayers.

While Mirwaiz left back for his Nageen residence in a Police protected cavalcade, some of the withdrawing people shouted high-pitch pro-Azadi, pro-Pakistan and anti-India slogans. A few of them were seen carrying Pakistani flags. No sooner did the Police stop them from marching towards Nowhatta than they resorted to intense stone pelting on the columns and the Police vehicles.

During the ding dong clashes that lasted for around half an hour, Police chased the violent demonstrators and clashed with them on the mosque premises. Anjuman-e-Jamia Auqaf functionaries, as also the association of the Jamia Masjid traders, called for a protest shutdown in Srinagar on Saturday. They alleged that Police committed “desecration” of the mosque while firing tearsmoke canisters and pellets “inside Jamia Masjid”. Over a dozen protestors and Policemen sustained injuries.

Officials said that one protestor sustained grievous injuries and he was quickly evacuated to hospital.

Towards the end of the clashes, some unidentified but well identifiable people attacked some photojournalists with the allegation that they been provoking clashes and demonstrations at Jamia Masjid every Friday. Eyewitnesses said that Police watched the attack as mute spectators helplessly from a distance.

Heads of both factions of Hurriyat---Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Syed Ali Shah Geelani---besides other prominent separatist leaders supported the shutdown call of Anjuman-e-Jamia Auqaf and the local traders. In their separately issued statements, the separatist leaders condemned the Police action on the people inside the mosque and held Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s government responsible for “desecration” of the main mosque. Officials contradicted reports of desecration and asserted that a routine clash had occurred between some urchins and Police outside the mosque.

Till late on Friday night, authorities had not imposed prohibitory orders but officials holding senior positions in Police and civil administration said that “informal curfew” could be enforced if demonstrators seemed to turn violent in downtown Srinagar like on last Friday.

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On moral pedestal, Riyaz Jan should speak out

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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SRINAGAR, Jun 27: Arguing in favour of the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) on June 17^th before a Constitutional Bench headed by Justice J.S. Khehar, senior advocate and President of Supreme Court Bar Association Dushyant Dave said: “My Lords should wear a burqa and roam in the court corridors to hear the way lawyers talk about the judges of this court. You will get first-hand account of the rotting justice delivery system. The kind of lawyers who are being appointed as judges is a disgrace”.

Dave added: “Acting chief justice of a high court decides to sit in a single bench, gets the roster for criminal cases, has the case transferred to his bench from another bench and quashes the FIR only because the person involved happens to be a top film star. Which driver gets bail within hours of conviction unless he happens to be a top film star? Which person will get bail by this court on the first day of the bail plea and without a notice to the other side if it is not a big politician? It is a shame”. He was cogently driving home to the Bench that incompetent lawyers in large numbers had been inducted as judges of High Courts and Supreme Court on the recommendation of Collegium and in the process the justice delivery system had turned into a sham.

Exactly five days after Dave’s spine-chilling averments, Jammu and Kashmir’s Advocate General Riyaz Ahmad Jan tendered his resignation to Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s PDP-BJP coalition that had picked him up for the prestigious position as lately as on March 15. It was probably for the first time in the judicial history of the State that an Advocate General stepped down within three months of his appointment which, normally, was supposed to run parallel to the government’s six-year term.

In a conversation with STATE TIMES, Jan revealed that he had developed “serious differences” with the government on “certain crucial issues”. He claimed that the things had come to a head and he was left with just two options: compromise or quit. “I chose to step down”, he asserted.

“Authority, dignity and grace are the three components of the office of Advocate General. And none of these can be compromised”, Jan told another newspaper, Greater Kashmir. He added: “There are many issues on which the AG should be taken into confidence and these cannot be imposed upon every time. There is a limit to patience and when that limit exceeds, you have the only option to quit and not to compromise on your principles.”

J&K’s Bar is genuinely proud to have created conscientious legal practitioners who upheld the dignity and prestige of the high office of Advocate General and did not compromise their self-respect. Jan is indisputably one among them as the Government has not responded to his allegation that it’s ‘interventions’ in the last three months had threatened to undermine the dignity of AG’s office. [Law Secretary Mohammad Ashraf Mir just said that Jan did not come up to the government’s “expectations”]. Neither Jan nor Ashraf elaborated as to what exactly were the government’s “expectations” and what precisely the areas of difference.

Even before democracy came into existence in 1947, J&K’s Bar had celebrated lawyers like Justice Masood Hassan who, after functioning as Vice Chancellor of a University, had been appointed as Advocate General by Maharaja Hari Singh. It didn’t take Hassan a second to resign when he learned that Maharaja had not invited him for a particular official function.

There may be men who did not demit office until reminded by a successor regime that AG’s engagement is essentially a political appointment. There may also be men who tender resignation like Justice (retd.) Ali Mohammad Mir did in 2005 towards the end of his tenure as Chairman of J&K State Human Rights Commission. But Jan’s quitting puts him on a high moral pedestal.

But, contrary to Dave, what makes this eminent lawyer keep things of public interest shrouded in mystery? Is he, like Ministers, legislators and High Court judges, on oath to keep the government’s matters hidden from the public domain? Doesn’t his refusal to speak out keep the government’s “uncalled for interventions” intact for his successor who is picked up from a lesser experienced and younger lot and appointed AG in absence of the Cabinet’s sanction within 20 hours?

Grapevine suggests that Jan declined to act as a “domestic help” of the bureaucracy often develops ego and compatibility issues with the lateral appointments. He had reportedly applied strictness and accountability to his team and would personally appear in a many matters in the court.

Least accustomed to red-tapism, Jan would not shuttle between offices and residences of politicians and bureaucrats for his PR profile. In fact his appointment in March came as a surprise to many as few would expect an anti-establishment lawyer like him to bite the bait from a coalition that had a hardcore right wing group as its key constituent. He accepted the offer when many in his fraternity were expecting another learned lawyer Altaf Haqani’s appointment as AG.

Jan’s half-revelation, in fact, could lead to more confusion as some of the government functionaries have been whispering in certain circles that he attempted to interfere in the government’s matters which did not fall under his constitutional mandate. Under these circumstances, people of the State have every right to know as to what were the issues on which he developed differences with the government and felt his office’s dignity being undermined.

Being tightlipped on the specifics would not serve any purpose. It would only leave his successors vulnerable to more “uncalled for interventions” from the Executive and help his detractors to dismiss his act as brinkmanship. He should speak out like Dave. Even the Advocates Act demands him to be “bold”.

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