Despite High Court directions, J&K admn yet to file report on arms licence scam

Arjun Sharma

Jammu, September 20

Despite directions issued by a Division Bench of the High Court of J&K and Ladakh to place before it the current status report of the fake arms licence scam, the J&K government has once again failed to provide the information. Some former and serving bureaucrats are said to be involved in the scam.

The Bench had on June 2 asked the government to file the latest status report on the two CBI cases. The next date of hearing was July 26 but the needful was not done. On August 21, the court gave two weeks to the administration on the request of Senior Assistant Advocate General SS Nanda. Even then the General Administration Department (GAD) failed to file the latest status report during the hearing on September 18.

Deputy Solicitor General of India (DSGI) Vishal Sharma, appearing for the Union Government’s Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) on June 2, informed the Division Bench that the prosecution proposal of IAS officers allegedly involved in arms licence scam was received from the J&K administration by the DoPT in April 2021 and in view of several deficiencies, the said proposal was returned to J&K in December 2021 to rectify the defects and resubmit it for prosecution sanction through single window system as per the new guidelines.

Sharma had also placed on record the several reminders sent to the J&K government to expedite the process. He further submitted that the ball was in the court of the J&K government.

It is worth mentioning here that the administration has already granted prosecution sanction against the JKAS officers in the alleged scam but with regard to IAS officers it has not reverted so far to the DoPT. The matter will be heard on November 6.