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| Ex-Chief Secretary S.S.Kapur’s re-employment merely promise fulfilling exercise? | | SWRRA not a constitutional body | |
Syed Junaid Hashmi
JAMMU, Oct 23: Ex-Chief Secretary Sham Singh Kapur’s accepting the re-appointment as Chairperson of State Water Resources Regulatory Authority (SWRA) has come as surprise to the bureaucrats who have retired earlier to him.
They are agog over the fact that a 1974 batch IAS officer, Sham Singh Kapur has accepted to head an institutions whose control, according to the act rests solely with the state government. Section 143 of the Jammu and Kashmir Water Resources (Regulation and Management) Act-2010 empowers the state government to remove the chairperson if he has been found guilty of proved misbehavior or has abused his official position or has acquired financial or other interest.
Ex-bureaucrats maintain that Kapur, who retired as Chief Secretary would have to work to the satisfaction of the government, which would essentially mean PHE minister Taj Mohiuddin. If the 1974 batch IAS officer would have read the act carefully, he would have come to know that government is merely fulfilling the promise which Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had been made to him when he retired in April 2011.
Bureaucratic lobby is unable to digest the fact that a post which would have filled by offering the same to an officer of the rank of Principal Secretary or above has been accepted by an extremely senior officer possessing extraordinary merit and excellence. More so, who has retired as Chief Secretary. Besides, they have begun pondering over the manner in which appointment has been made.
If ever a selection committee meeting has taken place and some names have been considered, four junior officers have evaluated the merit of a 1974 batch IAS officer. Even Chief Secretary Madhav Lal joined services in the year 1977 i.e. three years after Kapur. They question, “If propriety does not allow junior IAS officers to inquire into conduct of an officer, then how can one justify evaluation of merit of a retired Chief Secretary by a team of officers, much junior to him.”
Kapur was being considered for the two other high profile and independent institutions viz. State Information Commission (SIC) and State Vigilance Commission (SVC). When the government found going tough against its coalition partner Congress, it decided against rehabilitating Kapur in these two commissions. Later, ex-IRS officer G.R.Sufi took over as Chief Information Commissioner (CIC).
Besides, government recommended name of ex-DGP Kuldeep Khoda for being elevated as Chief Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) of newly constituted State Vigilance Commission (SVC). Kapur remained un-accommodated. Sources said that two of his close friends in the state bureaucracy, who enjoyed prize postings during Kapur’s tenure as Chief Secretary ensured that their ex-boss is re-employed.
None in the public is aware when the process was set in motion for the appointment of Chairperson of State Water Resources Regulatory Authority (SWRRA). GAD website which hosts almost all the orders of Jammu and Kashmir government does not give any insight into the constitution of the selection committee by the government for the selecting the chairperson of this newly constituted water regulatory authority.
According to section 141, government had to constitute a committee headed by Chief Secretary for the purposes of selecting the Chairperson and Members of the Authority. Other four members of the committee include Administrative Secretaries of PHE, Planning and Development Department, Finance and Law Department. Neither was the constitution of this committee reported in the newspapers nor was an order posted on the website of GAD or the PHE department.
If the sources are to be believed, Kapur’s elevation as Chairperson of SWRRA was one day affair. Chief Secretary and an IAS officer friend of Kapur wrote the script and got the same approved from the cabinet, where PHE Minister Taj Mohiuddin, in return to the ordering of inquiry against ex-Minister Abdul Gani Vakil, did not create any hurdles, sources said. Yet one does not question ability of Kapur to deliver but bureaucratic lobby is unable to understand Kapur taking up an assignment without going into its merits and demerits.
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