Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Sept 24: In a bid to expedite the prosecution of tainted officers, the Government has conferred the powers to the Special Judges/Additional Special Judge for trial of offences specified in several clauses of the Section 6 of the Jammu and Kashmir Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 1958. This has also paved the way for State Vigilance Organization to present challan against the former IAS, KAS and other officers, who were booked for various offences several years back.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that the Special Judges and Additional Special Judges, Anticorruption are posted by the State High Court but the powers for trial of offences are conferred by the State Government in exercise of the powers given under Section 6 read with Section 7 of the Jammu and Kashmir Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 1958.
In the absence of notification in this regard till last week, the recently appointed Special Judges and Additional Special Judge were not able to handle the trial of various offences and the State Vigilance Organization was also feeling handicap to present challan against the former IAS, KAS and other officers despite the directions of the Division Bench of State High Court passed in a Public Interest Litigation (PIL), sources said.
Now, the Department of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs has issued SRO 305 conferring the required powers to these Judges. The notification issued by the G H Tantray, Secretary, Department of Law reads: In exercise of powers conferred under Jammu and Kashmir Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 1958 and in supersession of all previous notifications on the subject, the Government hereby appoints three Judicial Officers to be the Special Judges/ Additional Special Judge for trial of offences specified in Clauses (a), (b) and (c) of the Section 6 of the Act”.
These Judicial Officers are Puneet Gupta, Special Judge, Anticorruption, Jammu province/ division, Mohan Lal, Special Judge Anticorruption for Kashmir province and Jeema Bashir, Additional Special Judge for Kashmir province for the cases assigned to her by the Special Judge.
“The issuance of the notification will not only expedite the process of prosecution of tainted officers but also pave the way for the State Vigilance Organization to file challan against the former IAS, KAS and other officers as per the directions of the Division Bench of State High Court”, sources said.
When contacted, SSP Vigilance, Shakti Pathak said, “we were waiting for the conferring of powers to the Judicial Officers for trial of offences”, adding “now we will start filing challan as per the directions of State High Court within a day or two and complete the entire process before October 1, 2012 when the PIL would be taken up for further hearing by the Court”.
It is worthwhile to mention here that in its order dated August 28, 2012, the Division Bench of State High Court comprising Chief Justice M M Kumar and Justice Muzaffar Hussain Attar had issued directions for filing of challan in those cases where the accused officers have already superannuated from the services and prosecution sanction was not required.
These retired officers are Mehboob Iqbal, the then Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir, who according to the Vigilance case, had allegedly misused his official position to vest the ownership right in favour of nine occupants of the State land at Gulmarg in the year 2008 under the J&K State Land (Vesting of Ownership Rights to the Occupants) Act, 2001 by resorting to dubious means and manipulation of records.
Similarly, Mohinder Singh, then Director Local Bodies, Jammu, A K Raina, then Director Local Bodies, Jammu, Kartar Singh, then Administrator, Notified Area Committee, Katra, Sham Lal Sharma, then Administrator NAC Katra and Jagdish Raj Sharma, then Administrator NAC Katra were booked by the Vigilance Organization in 2006 for making illegal appointments.
In case of Ravi Kumar Sharma, then Executive Officer, Municipal Committee, Katra, the Housing and Urban Development Department has already accorded sanction.
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