Early Times Report
Jammu, Aug 31: The State Accountability Commission (SAC) in 2012 said 'it doesn't have jurisdiction to proceed on anonymous complaints' and later had to close the case against the former finance minister for allegedly awarding smart card contract to his son worth crores in the state.
Yuva Shakti Mission, an organisation, that year in February levelled allegations against the former minister that he had given smart card contract to his son worth crores of rupees.
The Commission, however, in its report said that since there were question marks over the identity of the complainants they cannot proceed further and closed the inquiry.
"This Commission does not have jurisdiction to proceed on anonymous complaints filed without giving sufficient particulars of the complainant(s) so as to identify them, like the instant complaint, as such we are unable to proceed further in the matter.
The inquiry is therefore closed," the Commission said in its report.
The allegations against The former minister were that he awarded a contract worth rupees two crore to his son, in respect of preparing Smart Cards, for the Secretariat employees, in gross violation of the codal formalities. This way he was alleged to have showered huge and illegal benefits upon his son, even when he was not qualified to run such a project. Similarly an agreement was executed and commission worth 12 Crore is alleged to have been earned by The former minister in respect of computerization of employees' data base commonly known as Computerized Personal Information System (CPIS), for about 5 lakh employees of the State.
After he complaint, a ray of hope was generated in the state of Jammu and Kashmir that justice could be delivered but however, the case against the then finance minister was closed without any conclusion.
The SAC comprised of Justice Y.P Nargotra (Rtd), Chairperson and Justice Hakim Imtiyaz Hussain (Rtd) Member had asked then Finance Minister to appear in person or through counsel before the Commission on 6th March, 2012 in a case related to the preparation of Smart Cards.
This order was issued by SAC in a complaint filed by Yuva Shakti Vikas Mission raising serious allegations against the former minister and former Chief Minister and now Union Minister for Renewable Energy Dr. Farooq Abdullah.
The minister in question , who lost the recently held state electoions in year 2014 to the PDP candidate in his constituency Chrar-e-Shareif, had dismissed the allegations as baseless and had said that there was an attempt to malign his image. "Some elements had launched a vilification campaign against me to tarnish my four decade long unblemished political career," he had said.
Immediately after the allegations were levelled against him, the then Finance Minister had in a press conference on 23rd of February, 2012 described these allegations as baseless adding that some elements had launched a vilification campaign against him to tarnish his four decade long unblemished political career.
The SAC later in the concluding para of its order dated 12.02.2013 has observed that…Therefore, this Commission would not have jurisdiction to proceed on anonymous complaints filed without giving sufficient particulars of the complainant(s) so as to identify them, like the instant complaint, as such we are unable to proceed further in the matter. The inquiry is therefore closed. Records received from the concerned departments be returned.
It is being learnt that if the SAC would have been given the jurisdiction to act on the complaints, Rather would have been brought to the book. Experts believe that the limited powers given to SAC by the national conference regime was to ensure that no bigwig from the government could be caught in the SAC net and whenever the complaint would be filed, same should be disposed following certain limitations.
In this case also, the SAC didn't give him a clean chit in the case, rather the commission maintained that it has no jurisdiction to proceed in the matter and hence closing the case. |
