Nishikant Khajuria
JAMMU, Oct 13: In yet another controversy, which has raised many eyebrows and may invite an embarrassment to the State Government, the major decisions taken by the high-powered Central Committee of the Jammu Kashmir Academy of Art, Culture and Languages (JKAACL) qualify to be rendered as null and void as said meeting of the apex decision making body, which was held last week, did not form the quorum and thus had no legitimacy.
Notwithstanding clear cut ruling in Constitution of the Academy that five members of the Committee shall form quorum for its any meeting, the apex decision making body met under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti with only two other members of the Central Committee present there and took a number of significant decisions.
Quorum for the meeting was short of at least two members as none other the Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, Secretary JKAACL Aziz Hajini and Financial Advisor of JKAACL (Commissioner Secretary Finance) Navin K Chaudhary), are members of the Central Committee. Even as the October 4 meeting was also attended by Minister of Finance and Culture, Haseeb Drabu, MoS for Culture, Priya Sethi, Principal Secretary to CM, BB Vyas and Secretary Culture, Dilshad Khan, none of these is member of the Central Committee but Special Invitees, as per constitution of the Academy.
It may be recalled that during its October 4 meeting, the Governing Body had constituted various new committees like Central Committee, General Council, Finance Committee and Sub-Advisory Committee for a term of five years. Besides, it also decided to open new state-of-the-art Regional Cultural Centres of JKAACL, enhance monthly financial assistance of Rs 700, being paid to artists and writers who are facing difficult times, to Rs 2500, reduced the duration of the calligraphy course from three years to two years and enhanced the stipend of Rs 1000 and Rs 1200 to Rs 2000 and Rs 2500 per month for students from urban and rural areas respectively.
The meeting also enhanced the award money in favour of Best Book from Rs 40,000 to Rs 1 lakh and Best Translation work from Rs 40000 to Rs 50000, which is at par with the award money given by Sahitya Academy.
However, all these significant decisions qualify to be rendered as null and void as the Central Committee, which is the Executive Board and the Governing Body of the Academy, did not have the required quorum of five members in the meeting. “The JKAACL authorities apparently kept the Chief Minister in dark over the issue of quorum and thus misled her for the reasons best known to them,” said a senior functionary of the Academy on the condition of anonymity.
When contacted, Secretary JKAACL, Aziz Hajini claimed that B B Vyas and Dilshad Khan are also members of the Central Committee in the capacity of Commissioner Secretary Information and Secretary Culture, respectively and hence quorum of five members was formed for the meeting.
However, according to Ramesh Mehta, former Secretary of JKAACL, the Government has to notify the nomination of even ex-officio members to the Central Committee and till no notification in this regard is issued by the General Administration Department, neither Secretary Culture nor Commissioner Secretary Information are entitled to be designated as members of this Governing Body, who are to be nominated by the Government among its nominees on the General Council under Article 12 (V).
Pertinent to mention that no such notification has been issued so far and even the Commissioner Secretary Finance is also yet to be designated as the Financial Advisor, which means that only two members of the Central Committee, Chief Minister and the Secretary JKAACL, were present in the October 4 meeting.
As per Constitution of the JKAACL, the Central Committee comprises of the President ( Chief Minister), Vice-President ( who is elected by the General Council), Secretary JKAACL, Financial Advisor, three members nominated by the Government of Jammu and Kashmir from among its nominees on the General Council under article 12 (v), two members to be elected by the General Council and four members to be co-opted by the Central Committee from among the members of the General Council selected under Article 12, clauses (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix) and (x).
Since the General Council was not constituted for the last 25 years, hence there was no election of Vice-President and nomination of Government as well as private members for the Central Committee.
Prominent Dogri writer Prof Lalit Magotra, who has remained as non-official member of the Central Committee for two times, also maintained that all decision of the Governing Body are ought to be null and void in view of lack of quorum of the meeting, wherein these resolutions were made.
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