In an unusual development, Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo and Law Secretary Achal Sethi wrote separate letters to the Legislative Assembly Secretariat seeking disallowance of a resolution moved by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah for restoration of statehood. According to Kashmir Media Service, the letters were sent three days after Omar Abdullah moved the resolution on September 25 and the House admitted it for consideration. The bureaucrats cited the matter being sub judice and urged the Assembly Secretariat not to take up the resolution.

Assembly Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather questioned the unprecedented intervention, saying there was no precedent for the bureaucracy writing to the Assembly Secretariat in such a manner. “I don't think there is any precedent, bureaucracy writing to the Assembly secretariat to scuttle the business of the House. That too without the approval of the minister concerned,” Rather told the media. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who also holds the Law portfolio, said he had no prior knowledge of the letters and learned about them only after the Assembly Secretariat informed him.

“Speaker sir, I'm the Law Minister and also Chief Minister but I have no knowledge of my bureaucracy sending an opinion to you on my resolution. I do not know on whose instructions it was sent,” Omar said in the Assembly. The Chief Minister questioned how officials could send an opinion opposing a resolution moved by him without his knowledge, highlighting the tensions arising from Jammu and Kashmir’s present status as a Union Territory. The controversy unfolded as the Assembly debated the restoration of full statehood.

The House subsequently passed the resolution on September 28 amid a walkout by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislators, who had opposed references to pre-August 2019 and pre-1953 positions. The episode has brought into focus the continuing friction between the elected government and the administrative machinery in IIOJK, where the restoration of full statehood remains a major political demand.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP)