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| Crucial PM's centre-state working group report leaked, yet J&K's top secret | | Babus unaware Justice Sagheer is no more | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
Syed Junaid Hashmi
JAMMU, Apr 16: Four months after death of Justice Sagheer Ahmed and exactly 18 months after late justice submitted report on Centre-State relations to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Babus running state's official machinery have categorically denied of having any information about the report.
A befitting example of this is how social welfare department replied to a query regarding recommendations of the working group on centre-state relations. A legislator had asked the department whether it has any knowledge any about the recommendation of schedule tribe status for Paharis. The department bluntly said that it has no knowledge about this recommendation.
Not only this, the department has further said that it has received no communication from Justice Sagheer in this regard. Ironically, the reply has been furnished to the legislator four months after the death of Justice Sagheer who died on January 31, 2011. Further, the department has said that it knows nothing about the report, which otherwise is being debated by a group of ministers.
A group of ministers constituted by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah is looking into the much leaked report to find out which recommendations could be implemented. Ironically, social welfare department is not the only department which knows nothing about the report. A random survey conducted by Early Times revealed that official machinery was completely ignorant about the report which took late Justice Sagheer around four years to complete.
Barring top four officials, all others contacted in the Home department referred to newspaper reports when asked about the report. Law department which has an efficient secretary in Ghulam Hassan Tantry and a performing minister in Ali Mohammed Sagar when asked handed over five page recommendatory part of the report while asserting that the only copy of the report is with the Chief Minister's office and with the committee which is looking into it.
Despite being told that a copy of the report is with Early Times and it has already published its contents, e department officials did not mince words while saying that the report would remain a top secret. "We are not concerned what you have but we have the original copy," added the official. He said that the late Justice had sent one copy only and it was handed over to Chief Minister.
Interestingly, Justice Sagheer in an exclusive interview with Early Times few months before his death had stated that copies of the report were available with Ajit Kumar, the then secretary to the commission. He had further said "It was impossible to prepare a report which would suffice demands of all the regions and it is because of this reasons, they are calling it a confused document."
He had elaborated the reasons for not taking too much interest in drafting the report. However, what is painful to note is the fact that the report despite being a leaked document is not being made public. Even the government and those who have read the report maintain that recommendation by Justice (retd) Saghir does not merit any celebration.
The casual approach with which he has addressed most crucial part of five Working Groups constituted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in May 2006, not only undermines the demand of Greater Autonomy to Jammu and Kashmir state as put forth by National Conference but further erodes New Delhi's credibility vis-à-vis a serious and sincere effort to resolve the Kashmir issue. They are terming the report flawed, weak and superficial. Observers affirm that barring a few mentions which one could relate to centre-state relations, the rest of the report deals with insignificant issues like promotion of IT industry, revival of HMT and enhancing of wages.
From a cursory look, one can reach the conclusion that the retired Judge has been very unfair to his job. Even then the government is keeping it close to the heart, not even revealing to the departments where its recommendations matter and also desisting from putting it up on the GAD website for public opinion. |
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