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| Now, opposition in Kashmir to J&K Municipal Ombudsman Act | | | Early Times Report
JAMMU, Feb 4: J&K Governor SP Malik has amended the Jammu and Kashmir Municipal Ombudsman Act, 2000. As per the amended Act, an official of the rank of Commissioner Secretary will also be eligible for appointment as Ombudsman. Hitherto, only a judge of a High Court or a person eligible to be appointed as judge of High Court was eligible for the office of Ombudsman charged with the duty of examining issues of corruption by municipal bodies.
The amended Act further specified that the Governor would appoint a person to the office on the recommendation of a committee comprising of Advisors to the Governor and the Chief Secretary. Hitherto, the Act had mandated the Governor to make the appointment acting on the advice of the Chief Minister after consultations with the Speaker of Legislative Assembly, Chairman of Legislative Council and Leader Of Opposition.
Not just this, the Governor has also amended the Jammu and Kashmir Protection of Human Rights Act, 1997, allowing government to take three months, instead of one month time to respond to the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) recommendation on rights violations. The amended Act bars the SHRC from inquire into matters of human rights violations which are older than one year.
"The Commission shall not inquire into any matter after the expiry of one year from the date on which the act constituting violation of human rights is alleged to have been committed; provided that provision of this subsection shall not apply to inquiries pending before the Commission on 28-11-2018," the amendment Act reads.
The amendments have evoked sharp reaction from Kashmir-based political parties. They have said that the Governor was "using legislative powers to take decisions even in matters which should have been left for the elected governments to decide on". These parties have further said that the "Governor's rule is a transitory arrangement only meant to uphold basic functioning of the state machinery till an elected government takes over".
"Proprietary doesn't demand that Governor should be going for spree of ordinances," NC provincial president Nasir Aslam Wani said. "The Governor should have had an idea that his tenure has only got extended after the President's rule," he has further said. The so-called human rights activist Mohammad Ahsan Untoo also has criticized the Governor. He has accused him of curtailing the powers of SHRC.
However Law Secretary, Achal Sethi, has defended the amended Act and said: "The amendment in the state's human rights act has been made in 'accordance with the provisions in the central act'". "We have done two amendments in Human Rights Act. One is to increase the response time period, and we have specified that in new complaints of human rights only those would be entertained in which the cause of action is within one year. There is a similar provision in the central act under which the National Human Rights Commission functions," the Law Secretary has said, and added that that the "government had to amend the Ombudsman Act as a new committee was to be constituted to make the appointment after the dissolution of Assembly". |
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