Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Nov 19: Legislative Assembly Speaker Mubarak Gul today received the reply to his notice issued to former Army chief Gen (Retd) V K Singh after the brief autumn session of the Legislature last month. Along with the reply, Gen Singh has also submitted a Compact Disk (CD) to the Speaker, which carried his interview and a press conference in which he had made the allegations that majority of Ministers in Jammu and Kashmir were being paid by the Army. The CD has been submitted to clarify his point.
Disclosing that he has received the reply of notice from Gen Singh today along with a CD, Mr Gul told the Excelsior that he would examine and study the reply and then take future course of action under Rules and Procedures of the House.
“I received the reply of the former Army chief by post today. Apart from the reply, Gen Singh has also posted a CD carrying details of his interview and press conference in which he had made the allegations,” he said, adding that he would study the reply and watch the CD before initiating any further action in the matter under Rules and Procedure of the House.
Mr Gul disclosed that the former Army chief had sent reply to the notice by an ordinary post.
“Though the reply to the notice was signed on November 10, it reached to me today after nine days as it had been sent by ordinary post,” the Speaker said. The envelope containing the former Army chief’s reply and the CD had been posted from Gurgaon (Haryana), where Gen Singh was presently living after his retirement as the Army chief.
After massive uproar in autumn session of the Legislature in Srinagar in October, Mr Gul had issued notice to Gen Singh asking him to explain his position on allegations made by him in interviews given to news channel in which he had alleged that the Army had paid several Ministers in Jammu and Kashmir. He had reacted after a national newspaper reported that Agriculture Minister Ghulam Hassan Mir had been paid Rs 1 crore by the Army “to topple Omar Abdullah Government”.
The issue had generated heat in the State and the brief Assembly session that followed in October witnessed uproarious scenes with both ruling party-the National Conference and Opposition-the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) demanding that the former Army chief should be summoned to the Assembly to prove his allegations or otherwise tender an apology.
Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Saifullah Mir had also demanded that Gen Singh should be summoned to the House.
On the last day of the session, the Speaker had promised that he would serve notice to the former Army chief and seek a written reply from him on his allegations pertaining to the Ministers. Few days after the session, Mr Gul had dispatched the notice to Gen Singh on the basis of breach of privilege notice received by him from some Ministers/Members of the House.
It may be mentioned here that the former Army chief has already taken a U-turn on his allegations saying that no money has been paid to the Ministers of Jammu and Kashmir.
Sources said the Speaker would himself go through the reply of Gen Singh and then take future course of action under Rules and Procedure of the House.
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