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| Why is Omar seeking alliance with Cong? | | For smooth governance or promoting corruption! | | early times report
jammu, Dec 9: For the past few months Omar Abdullah has been repeatedly saying that fighting corruption in a coalition was difficult. He repeated his statement while addressing the Hind-ustan Times summit titled "What India needs: Persp-ective of you-ng leaders" in New Delhi.
"I believe that you can fight corruption but I also believe it is impossible to eradicate corruption in a coalition dispensation and that is the way it is. This is my opinion and you can have yours", he told the audience comprising Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Mini-ster from Punjab.
A question arises. If Omar firmly believes that coalition breeds and promotes corruption, why is he desperate to contest the 2014 Assembly Elections jointly with Congress? This goes against his promise of providing a clean and fair administration to the hapless people of the state.
Soon after this summit, while announcing to fight Panchayat quota MLC elections jointly Omar Abdullah made a casual announcement that National Confe-rence and Cong-ress would be fighting 2014 Assembly elections jointly. However, on the very next day his uncle and senior National Conference leader She-ikh Mustafa Kamaal disagreed with the views exp-ressed by Omar Abdullah and on the other hand Sham Lal Sharma who is Health Minister of J&K and a senior Congress lea-ders also disagreed with Omar Abdullah's statement to contest 2014 Asse-mbly elections jointly.
To uphold his promise of a clean administration, he (Omar) enacted a strong version of Right to Information Act (RTI) which is at par with the Central RTI legislation. The Government passed State Vigilance Commission Act and as well as Public Services Guarantee Act (PSGA) .
But all the laws have serious flaws. J&K Right to Information Act (RTI) 2009 was enacted on March 20th, 2009 and the law is at par with the Central RTI legislation but what prompted Omar Abdullah led Government to make amendments in the rule 45 of the J&K RTI Rules 2010 under which State Information Commission had powers to summon top level bureaucrats up to the rank of Chief Secretary ? Now the State Information Commission has been rendered powerless and it is just like a lame duck.
Similarly there are obvious alterations that have been made to the template Central Vigilance Commission Act of 2003 with the intention of downgrading the SVC's autonomy and making it subordinate to the Government. For example, at the Centre, selections to the CVC are made by a high-powered panel comprising the PM and the Leader of the Opposition and the final appointments are made by the President. Under the J&K law, selections are instead made by the State Cabinet and appointments are made by the Government (rather than the Governor). At the Centre, only the President has the authority to suspend and unilaterally remove Vigilance Commissioners.
Under the J&K law, that authority has been granted to the Government (rather than the Governor). At the Centre, the (Chief) Central Vigilance Commissioner's rank and salary is the same as the Chief Election Commissioner of India or a Supreme Court Justice, and is therefore senior to any Government official. Under the J&K law, the Chief Vigilance Commissioner's rank and salary has been downgraded to the level of the Chairman of the JKPSC, who is at par with the Chief Secretary. In contrast, the J&K Right to Information Act of 2009 grants much greater autonomy to the State Information Commission in all of these respects. It is clear that the CVC Act was deliberately downgraded so that the SVC would be subordinate to the Government rather than being answerable only to the Governor.
The SVC Act also includes no provisions for protecting whistleblowers, who are a crucial source of information for the SVO and who are frequently threatened, harassed, and targeted in retaliation for their honesty as the current and former Vigilance Commissioners can attest. The SVC Act does not include clear provisions to ensure that the SVC and SVO are adequately staffed and resourced. The SVC Act does not include provisions to ensure investigations are completed in a time-bound manner. The SVC Act does not include a provision to ensure that records of investigations are released after cases are brought to their logical conclusion. The list of flaws and weaknesses are too numerous to list here.
And the much hyped public Service Guarantee Act is also a failure. The Omar Abdullah Government enacted this important law but in absence of the commission to oversee the proper implementation of PSGA the Act is just a toothless tiger. The officers have a habit of protecting their subordinates and same this happens under PSGA , hardly any officer has been penalised under PSGA till date.
Our Ministers and political leaders against whom cases of corruption were filed in State Accountability Commission roam freely and not a single one has been chargesheeted since last 4 years. The Ministers involved in the Cooperative scam , Cricket scam or Board exam scam have not been touched till date and it clearly indicates that we have a coalition for corruption in our state which our Chief Minister wants to continue with . We need a strong coalition against corruption in our state and not a coalition for corruption.
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