The appointment of an IAS officer as the Commissioner/Secretary of the General Administration Department (GAD) by the Jammu and Kashmir government has fluttered the dovecots in the region. The CBI has sought prosecution sanction against this IAS officer in the arms licences scam case leading the Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court expressing utter dismay at the appointment.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Tashi Rabstan and Justice M A Chowdhary wondered if there is dearth of honest and upright IAS officers in J&K?
2005 batch IAS officer M Raju’s name figures in the CBI chargesheet in the case. It needs to be mentioned here that Raju was posted as Kargil DM at the time of committing the alleged irregularities.
The bench told the counsel for GAD that the Commissioner/Secretary should be removed immediately.
The court noted the point raised by advocate Sheikh Shakeel Ahmed, representing the petitioners, that GAD was trying to shield some high-profile bureaucrats by deliberately sending incomplete proposals to Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) for prosecution sanction.
The MHA had asked the J&K Chief Secretary, through a communication earlier, to forward the proposals for grant of prosecution sanction against M Raju and Prasanna Ramaswamy G (former Leh DM) to it after getting the administrative approval of the Ladakh LG.
The bench has now directed the J&K administration to file an action taken report on MHA’s communication dated Feb 12, while ordering the CBI to file a status report before the next date of hearing.
The final hearing in the gun licences scam case has been scheduled for April 24.
