Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah seems to be in a fix again. The State Accountability Commission (SAC) has issued showcause notices to his government after initiating a formal inquisition into a complaint that it has picked up an army of political favourites and some “blue-eyed boys” and appointed them advisers and heads of various government-sponsored bodies, some of them holding the rank and status of Cabinet minister and drawing hefty salaries, besides enjoying other perks at the cost of state exchequer.
It has, in particular, described the appointment of two senior advisers to the chief ministers with the status of a Cabinet minister and minister of state and their entitlement to the amenities attached to the office of such government functionaries seemingly to be without any authority of law.
Minister for law and parliamentary affairs Ali Muhammad Sagar, however, claimed the appointments were legal and in accordance with the Constitution. “We’re examining the complaint and will reply to it as may be warranted under the rules. The appointments are legal and in accordance with the Constitution of the state,” he told a local news agency. Asked whether advisers and chairpersons should step down in the backdrop of SAC notice, he said, “There are not any corruption charges against them that they will resign. The appointments are constitutional and legal. Such appointments have been made in the past as well and we don’t see any problem in there.”
The bolt from the blue, as the move is being seen by many here, has come at a stage when the Opposition has stepped up its tirade against the Omar Abdullah government, openly accusing it of shielding corrupt within. The recent bizarre episode of senior minister Peerzada Muhammad Sayeed being allowed to continue in the Council of Ministers even after he had quit in the backdrop of an official probe corroborating the charge that his foster son had, conniving with officials of the J&K State Board of School Education which came directly under his control, cheated in a senior secondary examination, is being presented as a glaring example of the chief minister’s leniency.