Divided on Sarfaesi Act, Kashmir Bar may not support separatists’ stir on SC verdict

In J&K High Court, ex-Bar chief alongwith GOI counsel argued strongly in favour of SARFAESI; incumbent Bar President opposed it

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

_______

JAMMU, Dec 19: Notwithstanding a barrage of statements from both, the separatist as well as the mainstream opposition leaders in Kashmir valley against the Supreme Court of India verdict, Srinagar-based High Court Bar Association (HCBA) seems to be unlikely to take a stand on enforcement of the Central law giving powers to banks and other financial institutions to auction the mortgaged immovable properties of the defaulting borrowers in Jammu and Kashmir.

Even as some of its top functionaries, while responding to newspersons’ queries, have maintained what they argued as private counsels previously in J&K High Court, HCBA significantly had not issued any statement in support of the separatists’ diatribe till late on Monday.

Announced on December 16, the judgment of the Supreme Court judges Kurian Joseph and R.F. Nariman has stirred a hornets’ nest in Jammu and Kashmir as it has been resolutely hailed by the Jammu-based political parties, including BJP and National Panthers Party, but stoutly assailed by almost all the separatist and mainstream parties, including Omar Abdullah’s National Conference (NC).

While granting the financial institutions right to auction the mortgaged immovable properties of the permanent residents of Jammu and Kashmir in the event of their failure to pay back the loans, the Supreme Court has categorically set aside judgment of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court that had barred the banks from proceeding against the defaulters under the central law titled Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002, (SARFAESI) in the State of Jammu and Kashmir.

The legal battle in JKHC had witnessed a drama of sorts including sudden resignation of the Mufti Mohammad Sayeed government’s Advocate General Riyaz Ahmad Jan in the thick of the arguments on June 25 — within 100 days of his appointment on March 15, 2015. Legal circles insist that Mr Jan —who asserted that the Mufti government had compromised dignity of the AG’s office, but never elaborated— wanted to oppose enforcement of the Sarfaesi Act but was “under pressure” from the PDP-BJP coalition to remain equivocal and borrow time.

The opposition politicians, as well as the independent writers, have invariably attached intrigue to the Mehbooba Mufti government’s “lackadaisical attitude” while pointing out that no eminent lawyer appeared in Supreme Court to defend the State’s exclusive right of legislation on matters of immovable property. The entire job was left to the State’s standing counsel. Even the Advocate General and the senior AAGs played truant.

On the other hand, Attorney General Mukul Rohtagi, joined by eminent lawyer Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing on behalf of State Bank of India and the Government of India, defended the different banks’ notices to the defaulters and enforcement of Sarfaesi Act in J&K. The judges decreed in their favour, asserting that J&K Sate had a special constitutional status but did not enjoy any “sovereignty” within the dominion of India.

“From High Court to Supreme Court, it was a discussion simply to determine whether it was the Parliament or the State Legislature that was by law and Constitution empowered to make laws related to this issue. High Court upheld that it was none other than the State Legislature. Supreme Court quashed that judgment and decreed that it was the Parliament”, former judge of JKHC Justice (retired) Hasnain Massodi explained.

HCBA apparently has its constraints in not taking a public stand as its top faces Mian Abdul Qayoom and Zaffar Ahmad Shah held divergent positions in JKHC. HCBA has been a constituent of the separatist conglomerate Hurriyat Conference and both, Mr Qayoom and Mr Shah, have been disputing J&K’s accession to India and struggling for Plebiscite under the UN resolutions.

While appearing on behalf of private petitioners, HCBA President and top notch lawyer Mian Qayoom, and senior advocate Altaf Haqani in JKHC opposed enforcement of Sarfaesi Act tooth and nail. They held that it was a matter of “administration of justice” in which the Executive or Legislature of the Government of India had no authority to legislate or make rules.

Mr Qayoom attracted the Bench’s attention to Article 370 of the Constitution of India and submitted that the mechanism prescribed in the said article for application of laws to the State of J&K, had not been followed. He argued that clause B (i) of Article 370 had restricted the power of the Parliament to make laws for the State of J&K to those matters in the Union List and the Concurrent List, which in consultation with the Government of the State, were declared by the President to correspond to matters specified in the Instrument of Accession. He also referred to clause B (ii) of Article 370 and submitted that other matters in the Union List may be applied to the State of J&K with concurrence of the Government of the State by the President. He contended that this constitutional mechanism had not been followed for application of law to the State of J&K.

Mr Qayoom also referred to an application/ affidavit filed by the State of J&K in a writ petition in Jammu wing of the Court and submitted that the State of J&K had raised objections in respect of enforcement of the Act of 2002 in the State of J&K. He referred to section 140 of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882 (a State Act) to indicate that application of the Act of 2002 had directly impacted the fields of legislation, for which laws could be exclusively made by the State legislature.

On the contrary, former HCBA chief and the top advocate Zaffar Ahmad Shah, appearing on behalf of the Jammu and Kashmir Bank, argued strongly in favour of enforcement of the Sarfaesi Act in J&K, while claiming that the Parliament was within its right to make related laws for J&K State.

Zaffar Shah submitted that in view of Entry 45 of List-I, (Union List) of 7th Schedule of the Constitution of India, the Parliament was competent to legislate the Act of 2002. He emphasised that the Central Government had amended the Rules of 2002 and it had been prescribed that while enforcing the Act of 2002, the interests in the immovable property could be transferred only in favour of the State subject. He also submitted that in view of the amendment made in the Rules of 2002, grievances of the petitioners stood redressed.

Mr Shah, while referring to Article 370, submitted that in view of the Constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Order of 1954 (C.O. 48-S.R.O 1610 dated 14-05-1954) issued by the President of India, the Central Government had been authorised to legislate laws in respect of Entries in the List-I, (Union List) of 7th Schedule of the Constitution of India, including entry 45, which Entry, he argued, stood extended to the State of J&K in terms of the aforesaid constitutional order. He further submitted that it had been held by the Supreme Court, in case reported in (2009) 4 SCC 94 that the Act of 1993, as also Act of 2002, had been enacted in terms of Entry 45 of List-I, (Union List) of 7th Schedule of the Constitution of India.

Mr Shah argued that in view of the Authoritative Pronouncement of the Supreme Court, the issue that enactment falls within the purview of Entry 11 (a) of List-III, (Concurrent List) of 7th Schedule of the Constitution of India, had been “rendered irrelevant”. He asserted before the JKHC Bench that huge amounts of money had crystalized into Non Performing Assets. He submitted that withholding of huge amounts by the borrowers was “directly and adversely affecting the economic growth of the State of J&K”.

However, Mr Qayoom’s team won the case in JKHC. Even as Mr Shah did not appear in Supreme Court, his arguments in favour of the enforcement of Sarfaesi Act were further strengthened by Attorney General and other eminent lawyers engaged by the Centre to defeat a State that was in tacit collaboration with the Centre. Finally the verdict on December 16 came in favour of the Centre and the banks of which one respondent bank is controlled by Government of Jammu and Kashmir.

END

3 soldiers killed in terror attack: Again in Pampore; again despite alert from IGP Kashmir

On almost all the attacks on convoys, Police, forces had been alerted; STATE TIMES predicted the strikes on the highway

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

_______

JAMMU, Dec 17: In the evening on December 8, 2015, union Home Minister Rajnath Singh called Director General of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) Prakash Mishra to greet him over the news that two of three militants, who had attacked a paramilitary convoy at Green Tunnel Bijbehara a day before and left six personnel injured, had been gunned down at Sempora — the border point of Srinagar and Pulwama districts on Srinagar-Jammu highway, on outskirts of Srinagar. Minutes before that, Mishra, on way from Anantnag to Srinagar, had crossed the same point, around 300 yards from the magnificent and imposing EDI complex.

On a tip-off, Police and security forces had laid an ambush at Sempora and started checking of all incoming vehicles. Two Lashkar-e-Tayyiba militants travelling in a load-carrier jumped out and attempted to escape while firing but were both shot dead in retaliation. The civilian driver, hired in Pulwama, survived. The militants were virtually chasing the CRPF DG. That was the beginning of a series of attacks and encounters on the highway, perceived to be free of militants for years.

The seventh attack in the chain, on Saturday, at Pampore, 2 Km from Sempora, in just 12 months, has exposed a many chinks in the armour of the Police and security forces in Kashmir. It left three soldiers dead and one more injured.

In the afternoon on Friday, a communication from IGP Kashmir Syed Javaid Mujtaba Gillani to all the senior Police and security forces officer operating in South Kashmir had asked them to take “all necessary precautions” as the militants, according to a credible information, were likely to attack a patrol or convoy of security forces in “a major town” on the highway. Evidently, it was as usual ignored and taken without any sense of seriousness by the field officers.

Significantly, on December 11, STATE TIMES had published that Hizbul Mujahideen’s so-called Highway Squad was planning a major strike on the highway somewhere between Khannabal and Qazigund. They just changed the venue and went ahead with their strike without regard to the red alert that had been sounded on the highway.

Even when the most audacious terror strike was carried out by militants of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba at Pampore, 1 Km from Sempora, on June 25 this year, STATE TIMES had on the same day published a detailed story, reporting that the militants were planning a major attack on security forces around Srinagar. Officers in Police and security forces as usual ignored it. On the same day, a group of three suicide bombers attacked a CRPF convoy at Frestbal, Pampore, and left 8 soldiers dead. Twenty-one more sustained injuries. Sources insist that the fidayeen attack occurred despite a red alert.

Situated in a high security zone between headquarters of Army’s 15 Corps and the ace counterinsurgency division Victor Force, Sempora-Pampore belt was in fact chosen for almost all the major terror strikes on the highway — except that of the June 3 attack on a convoy in which three BSF men were killed and 6 left injured in Chief Minister’s hometown of Bijbehara. On June 4, militants also gunned down two Police personnel, including an Assistant Sub Inspector of Police, on Khannabal-Pahalgam Road at the South Kashmir district headquarters of Anantnag.

Two attacks on the Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI) on February 20, 2016, and October 10, 2016, left the key training and capacity building centre for the Kashmiri youths devastated. In one of his unusually terse reactions, former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah tweeted that the militants were the saboteurs of the careers of Kashmir’s educated and unemployed youths.

The first fidayeen attack in February, 2016, damaged EDI’s four-storey administrative complex extensively. The nine fatal casualties in the three-day-long gunfight included two Majors and a soldier of Special Force, two CRPF personnel, a temporarily engaged gardener besides three Pakistani militants of LeT. Those evacuated by Police and security forces included Hizbul Mujahideen supremo Syed Salahuddin’s son, working as a junior IT manager with EDI.

In the second fidayeen attack in October, the militants failed to cause any fatal casualty to Police or security forces but kept themselves holed up and alive for 56 hours. Finally troops stormed the devastated 9-storey hostel block and killed both the militants.

END

-----------------------

Terror attacks/ encounters in Kashmir valley on Srinagar-Jammu highway

Dec 07, 2015   

Green Tunnel, Bijbehara     

6 CRPF men injured

Dec 08, 2015

Sempora, Srinagar outskirts         

2 militants killed; 2 CRPF men, 2 civilians injured

Feb 20, 2016   

EDI Complex, Sempora

3 Armymen, 2 CRPF personnel, 3 militants, 1 civilian killed; 13 injured

Jun 03, 2016   

Bijbehara, Anantnag  

3 BSF personel killed

June 25, 2016 

Pampore

8 CRPF men killed, 21 injured

Oct 10, 2016

EDI Complex, Sempora

2 militants killed

Dec 17, 2016

Pampore

3 soldiers killed, one injured

END

[Published in today's STATE TIMES]

Valley’s shadows and sunshine run parallel to each other

Kashmir calm as 2 militants die in gunfights, CM visits passing-out, DC mired in ex-gratia controversy, separatists reduce shutdown to two-days-a-week

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

________

JAMMU, Dec 14: Fourteen years ago when Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed conceived the idea of raising Islamic University of Science and Technology (IUST) at Awantipora, in close vicinity of the headquarters of Army’s counterinsurgency division Victor Force, he dreamt of diverting the Valley’s teenagers to academics, technology and science. Last two years, post-Assembly elections of 2014, this institute of learning has produced a breed of the youngsters who dedicated the prime of their youth to killing and getting killed.

As rhetoric often eclipses intentions, many of the IUST students nourished the dreams of achieving what a generation from Sufi Mohammad Akbar and Maqbool Bhat to Salahuddin and Yasin Malik had failed to accomplish. Paradoxically, they drew inspiration not only from the separatists but also from the genetically equivocal pseudo-separatists who delivered speeches, issued statements, penned articles and sang paeans for everybody from the British soldier Robert Thorpe to Yasin Malik. Many of them are now enjoying dignity and fortunes in the corridors of power in PDP-BJP government.  

Second year student of a diploma in civil engineering at IUST, Basit Rasool Dar, who died in an encounter with Police and security forces in Beowora village, near Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti’s hometown of Bijbehara, on Wednesday, is the latest in South Kashmir who ended up dying as a martyr to the ever-elusive cause of Azadi. His father, Ghulam Rasool Dar of Marhama (Bijbehara), a manager with Jammu and Kashmir Bank in Anantnag, wanted him to rise as an engineer. Basit chose to follow Burhan Wani, became a confidant of his successor and IUST student Zakir, Ishaq ‘Newton’ and others who emerged as “icons of freedom” in the last two years.

When Basit breathed his last, his mother was in Delhi — escorting elder son, who has been posted in the union capital after his selection in J&K Bank. Both returned to home to attend Basit’s funeral rites in the evening. Police maintained around 5,000 participated in the militant’s burial, though some reports put the numbers between 7,000 and 8,000.

But what is significant at the end of five months of the street turbulence in Kashmir is that Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti attended a Police commando passing-out parade a few miles short of Bijbehara and closer to IUST. She spoke of peace and the militants’ families’ right to ex-gratia munificence from the government. Director General of Police, K Rajendra Kumar, and Deputy Commissioner of Pulwama, Muneer-ul-Islam, escorted her to the venue. The spot at Lethapora was just furlongs away from the place on Srinagar-Jammu highway which witnessed hundreds of attacks on the mainstream politicians, officials and even the students ferried to Srinagar for a competitive examination. This is exactly where additional DC of Ramban was attacked while a mob torched his vehicle and his PSO opened fire, killing two persons.

For over three months, nobody from politicians to officials dared to venture into this area. Police and security forces surrendered it completely to militants, stone-pelters and demonstrators. Minutes after Basit’s burial, that marked a few incidents of stone pelting but failed to suspend the train services or traffic on the highway, Valley’s separatist leadership issued the fresh shutdown calendar. To everybody’s surprise, it asked the Kashmiris to continue their shutdown only on Saturday and Sunday every week and resume normal activities on five days a week. This relaxation was granted after five months of turmoil.

While the country’s television channels churned their brains on the Mehbooba Mufti government’s “temerity” of granting ex-gratia relief of Rs 4 lakh to Burhan Wani’s family over their another son Khalid’s death during an encounter in Tral in April 2015, DC Muneerul-ul-Islam stood unfazed, flanking Chief Minister at the passing-out parade.

In North Kashmir, LeT’s “Divisional Commander” Abu Bakar died in another gunbattle in Bomai area of Sopore.

Is this the denouement of the melodrama enacted through summer of the year 2016 that brought enriched statements from the separatists, leading to death of around 90 people, devastation of hundreds of properties and injuries to thousands of “protesters”. “We have been never this close to Azadi in last 26 years”, the separatists told the Kashmiris. Now the same people ask questions: “What have we achieved out of the five long months of shutdown? Where is the Azadi you promised us for five months? What makes you reduce the 24x7 shutdown to just two-days-a-week show?”

END

[Published in today’s STATE TIMES]

Ex-Minister Rather’s son claims Nirmal Singh’s JMC issued permission to Paradise Avenue

‘Man masquerading as RTI activist demanded Rs 30 lakh from my firm. We recorded his 40 phone calls. This mafia’s hand can be behind the blackmailing drive’

State Times News

________

JAMMU, Dec 13: Former Finance Minister and senior National Conference leader Abdul Rahim Rather’s businessman son Hilal Ahmad Rather on Tuesday claimed that a story about Jammu Municipal Corporation’s “illegal permission”, as carried in a Jammu-based newspaper, was “completely baseless” and possibly the handiwork of a blackmailing mafia that attempted an extortion of Rs 30 lakh from him and his partners earlier this year. Disputing the ‘facts’ given in the story point-by-point with his documentary evidences, the real estate entrepreneur claimed that the revised permission to hundreds of flats in his 13-floor blocks at Narwal Bala, christened as Paradise Avenue, had been issued by JMC when none other than the BJP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Dr Nirmal Singh was Minister of Housing and Urban Development in the year 2015.

As quoted by the daily, Nirmal Singh has alleged that the building permission to Paradise Avenue construction had been found “illegal” and the matter was being referred either to Crime Branch or to State Vigilance Organisation for criminal investigation. The daily has claimed that the permission had been granted by the “NC loyalist” Kiren Watal when he functioned as Commissioner JMC during Omar Abdullah’s NC-Congress government.

“It is a fact that the building permission was issued during the NC-Congress government in December 2013 in which my father was a Minister. But, there was never a political intervention. We fulfilled all the legal and procedural formalities. We obtained NOCs from all the concerned departments. Revenue Department verified the titles of the land. JDA gave in writing it was not its land or jurisdiction. Even BDO concerned issued his permission. JMC scrutinised everything. Thereafter, we deposited the fees and the building permission was duly issued by JMC. However, when the PDP-BJP regime took over in March 2015, JMC officials working under the new Housing Minister’s control approached us with the plea that the year 2013 permission would have to be scrutinised afresh. They checked and verified the documents and found everything in place. Thereafter, JMC, under Deputy CM’s control, issued the revised building permission on April 29, 2015”, Hilal revealed at a press conference.

“If the Housing Minister still wants FIR to be registered and this case assigned to Crime Branch and Vigilance, we welcome it. We have everything in place and nothing to worry about. But we alone won’t be in the dock. Housing Minister (Nirmal Singh) will be there too as the JMC under him issued the revised permission when none other than the same man was the Housing Minister”, Hilal asserted, while producing to mediapersons all the NOCs issued and both the building permissions---one issued during Omar Abdullah’s government and another during Mufti Sayeed’s government in which Dr Nirmal Singh functioned as Minister incharge Housing, Urban Development and Power.

“It smacks of political vendetta and targets me only for being an ex-Minister’s son. Behind this well-orchestrated vilification campaign, I also suspect the hand of a blackmailing mafia. I fail to understand how a reputed newspaper has been taken for a ride and how the baseless story has been published without attempting to take our version”, Hilal said at a time when Jammu is abuzz with reports and rumours alleging that a Minister of Mehbooab Mufti’s government extorted an amount of Rs 13 crore from an MLC of his own party for the permission granted to construction of luxury flats around the heritage site of Amar Mahal and close to Raj Bhawan.

 While playing a recorded telephonic conversation, in which two unidentified persons settle a deal over a huge amount to be extorted from the Simula partners, Hilal claimed that a blackmailer in the guise of an RTI activist recently attempted to extort an amount of Rs 30 lakh from his firm. He claimed that his firm had recording of 40 phone calls in which so-called RTI activists demanded money from every partner of his firm in exchange for not publishing the information and documents they had purportedly obtained through RTI application.

The conversation played at the press conference makes it clear that an RTI activist settles a deal with an employee of Hilal’s firm. “We two will take 30% each and your share will be 40%”, says a person about himself and another RTI activist and the employee of Hilal’s firm who seems to have trapped the two RTI activists.

“We will produce this entire documentary evidence to the criminal investigation and press for legal action against these blackmailers. We have no weaknesses, no irregularities that would force us surrender or succumb to any sort of blackmailing”, Hilal Rather asserted.

Hilal, who is a Bachelor of Technology from the prestigious Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani, admitted that a ‘gair mumkin khud’, consisting of 99 kanals of land existed on a part of his society. He, however, revealed that his permission had been issued and the construction had started over a year before J&K High Court banned constructions on such lands in July 2014.

“Honourable High Court is adjudicating on this issue. Let us have faith in the judiciary and wait for the judgment. How can someone in the government in advance issue a judgment selectively against Hilal Rather with retrospective effect?”, Hilal said. He clarified that even after JMC issued permission in favour of his firm at Narwal Bala and Jammu Development Authority (JDA) gave in writing in the NOC that it was outside its jurisdiction, his firm Simula approached the concerned BDO and also got his permission to the construction.

END

[Published in today’s STATE TIMES]

Red alert in Anantnag as Hizb ‘highway squad’ planning major attack

LeT claims its J&K chief Abu Dujana escaped but confirms death of two top militants in Bijbehra encounter

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

________

JAMMU, Dec 10: Police and security forces on Saturday sounded a red alert in Anantnag area after learning that Hizbul Mujahideen’s ‘Highway Squad’ was planning a major strike on the highway in South Kashmir.

Highly placed authoritative sources revealed to STATE TIMES that according to reliable information, Hizbul Mujahideen’s “Highway Squad” was planning to carry out a major attack on the security forces’ convoy on Srinagar-Jammu highway somewhere between Qazigund and Khannabal. Sources said that the militants of the “Highway Squad”, believed to be residents of Khudwani-Arwani belt, were planning to plant and explode a powerful IED, targeting some convoy of Army, BSF or CRPF in the next two or three days.

While the top officials in Police and security agencies were still blurred over the number and identity of the militants killed in the three-day-long gunbattle near Arwani, LeT confirmed that two of its top operatives, namely Abdul Majid Zargar alias Abu Talha Majid s/o Mohammad Amin Zargar of Gofabal, Kaimoh, and Ibrahim Ruhul Amin s/o Mohammad Amin of Vesu, Qazigund, had got killed in the joint operation of Army, CRPF and J&K Police.

Let spokesman claimed in a press release that the organisation’s J&K chief, Abu Dujana, a Pakistani militant who has been operating in the Valley since 2012, managed to escape from the tightly cordoned area. As already reported, a local civilian was also found dead. His bullet-riddled body was spotted and recovered from the railway track on Thursday.

Officials said that three AK-47 rifles were recovered from the debris of a completely destroyed house alongwith two acutely charred human bodies. However, senior CRPF officials insisted that three militants and a civilian had died in the operation. They said it was being verified whether the third militant, killed in the encounter, was Waseem of Shopian, Junaid Matu of Redwani or someone else. J&K Police officials claimed that only two militants and a civilian supporter of the militants had died in the operation.

Abu Dujana is currently the most wanted militant in Jammu and Kashmir. He was appointed as LeT’s chief for J&K after the organisation’s most dreaded head Abu Qasim of Bahwalpur, Pakistan, was killed in an encounter at Khandaypora, Kulgam, on October 29, 2015. Qasim was believed to be the mastermind of scores of attacks and fatal casualties of Police and security forces, including the August 5, 2015, fidayeen attack on a paramilitary convoy near Udhampur, on Srinagar-Jammu highway.

END

 [Published in today’s STATE TIMES]

Mehbooba leaves Cabinet meet in a huff as BJP Ministers oppose 2 IGP, 3 DIG posts for KPS

Nirmal Singh, Lal Singh rush to pacify the dejected Chief Minister at her home

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

________

JAMMU, Dec 9: Failing to get through her proposal of cadre review for officers of Kashmir Police Service (KPS) — reservation of 2 IPS posts of IGP and 3 IPS posts of DIG for KPS officers — Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Friday left the Cabinet meeting in a huff, without consideration of some key agenda items as the Ministers of her coalition partner BJP resisted any conversion of IPS cadre posts for promotion of KPS officers.

On instructions from Chief Minister, who is holding portfolio of Home Department, Principal Secretary Home, R.K. Goyal, on Thursday prepared a detailed proposal for reservation of 2 posts of IGP and 3 posts of DIG for the senior KPS officers who fail to get induction into IPS on time and retire only as SSPs. The Cabinet memo was duly endorsed and approved by Chief Minister and enlisted in the agenda for Friday’s Cabinet meeting.

With the support of some Cabinet Ministers of PDP, the KPS officers of 1999 batch have been demanding reservation of at least 5 IPS posts for the State police service officers on the pattern of their Kashmir Administrative Service (KAS) siblings.

While as five KAS officers, without their induction into IAS, are currently holding the posts of the administrative secretaries in Government of Jammu and Kashmir, six more of them are functioning in the grade of Commissioner-Secretary to Government and holding equivalent posts on ex-cadre basis. According to highly placed bureaucratic sources, IAS and IPS officers have submitted a host of representations to Government of India while strongly complaining that the cadre posts of IAS and IPS were being diverted for KAS and KPS officers.

Sources insist that from both, political as well bureaucratic quarters, in New Delhi, “men in J&K Government” had been advised to take a tough stand and fail whatever proposal the PDP would push in a Cabinet meeting.

According to the well-placed sources, after consideration and approval to certain agenda items, including a retired IAS officer Ashraf Bukhari’s appointment as Chairman of BOPEE, the Cabinet took up the agenda item of the cadre review of KPS.

The BJP Ministers, led by Deputy Chief Minister Dr Nirmal Singh, opposed the proposal tooth and nail, while contending that the cadre arrangement of IPS, IAS and IFS should not be disturbed without taking on board the Prime Minister’s Office that controls the IAS regulator Department of Personnel and Training (DOPT), Union Ministry of Home Affairs that regulates the IPS and the Union Ministry of Environment and Forestry that regulates the Indian Forest Service.

When some PDP Ministers sought to make it clear that there were more contenders for the reservation from Jammu than from Kashmir, the BJP Ministers declined to relent. They agreed only to the extent that the grade of IG and DIG could be granted to the senior KPS officers without posting them as IGPs and DIGs. Chief Minister herself pleaded the case of the non-IPS KPS officers, pointing out that for several years of their service towards the end of their career, they are forced to work under their juniors. It causes substantial demoralisation among the senior KPS officers, CM is said to have asserted.

As the BJP Ministers in one voice continued their opposition to the CM’s proposal, Ms Mufti got up and left the meeting in a huff. For the first time since she took over as CM in April this year, Ms Mufti turned impulsive on a Cabinet proposal and she drove straight to her official residence. Minutes later, PDP’s Cabinet Ministers Haseeb Drabu and Abdul Haq Khan rushed to the CM’s residence. Sources said that in half-an-hour, they were also followed by two BJP Ministers— Dy CM Nirmal Singh and Minister of Forest Lal Singh. It was not immediately clear whether Chief Minister entertained them or not.

Consequently, a number of the agenda items could not be considered in today’s meeting, that was the first after shifting of Durbar from Srinagar to Jammu. Previously, Cabinet had met in Srinagar on October 14.

Some reports said that differences between the coalition partners occurred on the proposal of the shifting of Chief Secretary B.R. Sharma as DG IMPA on retirement of Dr Arun Kumar and the appointment of Mr B.B. Vyas as the new Chief Secretary. However, top level bureaucratic and political sources told STATE TIMES that there was “no truth” in such reports circulated and spread through social media.

END

[Published in today’s STATE TIMES]

PDP Minister removes NC Minister’s 2014 plaque, lays fresh foundation stone for Budgam water scheme

With total development freeze in Valley, PDP-BJP Govt starts take-2 of foundation stones

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

_______

JAMMU, Dec 7: Stealing credit for developmental works is an old trait of politicians in Jammu and Kashmir. But, what the Mehbooba Mufti government’s Minister of Agriculture and PDP’s MLA of Chrar-e-Sharief did in his constituency on last Monday is uncommon. On December 5, Minister and MLA Ghulam Nabi Lone Hanjuria carried with him a team of officials to lay a fresh foundation stone for an irrigation scheme for which the foundation stone had been laid by three Ministers of the Omar Abdullah government in June 2014.

According to an official press release, issued by Department of Information vide No: PR/DI/16/5564 on December 5, 2016, and got published in many of the newspapers, including STATE TIMES, Mr Hanjura laid foundation stone for construction of Water Storage Tank at Arzan-Garzan in Chrar-e- Sharief constituency. The Minister said at the occasion that the Rs 25 crore irrigation scheme would irrigate 1022 hectares of land in Chrar-e-Sharief constituency.

“The project has been sanctioned at an estimated cost of Rs 25.28 crore under Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme (AIBP). On completion the project will irrigate 1022 hectares of land of seven habitations of Chrar-e-Sharief constituency. These areas include Charwani, Zakhipora, Kakavring, Palpora, Dardpora, Hathpora, Tangnar, Chack and Mohanjdaur”, said the press release.

“Speaking on the occasion, the Minister said that the Government is committed to provide basic amenities like adequate drinking water, power and road connectivity to the people of the State especially in rural and hilly areas. He said several initiatives have been taken in this regard adding that the Centre has already sanctioned a package of Rs 80,000 crore for the overall development of State”, said the press release further while highlighting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Rs 80,000 crore economic package which was announced by the PM in Srinagar on November 7, 2015.

“Mr. Hanjura said the present Chief Minister, Ms Mehbooba Mufti is carrying forward the mission of Late Mufti Sahab and she had recently laid foundation stone of two Nursing Colleges at Awantipora and Chrar-e-Sharief”, it added.

The press release said that Deputy Commissioner of Budgam, SSP of Budgam and “senior officers of Irrigation and Flood Control department” were present on the occasion.

Conducting a reality check, STATE TIMES learned that none of the senior officers of Irrigation and Flood Control department accompanied the Minister. Minister of Irrigation and Flood Control Choudhary Sham Lal, MoS Irrigation, Syed Farooq Andrabi, as also Chief Engineer, SE and Executive Engineer were conspicuously absent from the function. However an Assistant Executive Engineer was obediently in attendance.

Insiders revealed to this newspaper that the officers of their department stood away as it was difficult for them to attend the foundation laying of a scheme which had been approved in the previous regime and for which even the funds had been released. They provided a full album of the photographs which make it clear that the same scheme’s foundation stone had been laid by Omar Abdullah government’s Minister of Irrigation and Flood Control Sham Lal Sharma, Minister of Finance and National Conference’s Chrar-e-Sharief MLA Abdul Rahim Rather and Minister of State for Irrigation and Flood Control Nazir Ahmad Gurezi at the same spot on June 26, 2014.

The news item and photograph of the foundation laying was released by the State Information Department on June 26, 2014, and got published in newspapers on June 27, 2014.

“As the honourable Minister insisted that he would lay a fresh foundation scheme, we spoke to our Minister. When we explained to him that the foundation stone had already been laid in June 2014, he advised us to stay away. None of the senior officers attended it. We chose not to be part of it”, said an official. According to another official, AEE was put under pressure through the district administration and forced to accompany the Minister. “This scheme had not been executed in the last two years but that doesn’t mean we could remove the old stone and lay a fresh one for the incumbent Minister’s pleasure”, he said.

Attempts to reach Mr Hajura failed as his mobile phone was constantly not reachable. Chief Engineer Irrigation Kashmir Mir Javed Jaffar and SE (Hydraulic) Budgam-Srinagar Imtiyaz Ahmad Dhar did not respond to phone calls.

END

[Published to today’s STATE TIMES]