Tale of four commissions

Srinagar, Jan 24 : The statutory bodies established in held Jammu and Kashmir to ensure transparency and accountability in governance are dying a silent death owing to “indifference” of the present National Conference- Congress regime.

 While State Accountability Commission (SAC) and State Information Commission (SIC) are “toothless tigers” due to loopholes in their innate legal mechanism.

The fate of much- hyped State Vigilance Commission (SVC) is hanging in balance for the past two years. The tale of lone Rights body, State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) is no different, as it is lying headless for more than a year.

Although the present regime credits itself with reviving the SAC that was established during Peoples Democratic Party -Congress rule in 2005, the institution continues to face government’s indifference. Government till date has not responded to the Commission’s repeated pleas to arm it with full-fledged investigation wing headed by an officer of the rank of Additional Director General of Police.

Pertinently, Governor N N Vohra in 2011 had asked the State Government to fill up the vacancy of the second member of the Commission at the earliest. “There is need for the urgent appointment of the second member of the State Accountability Commission and filling up the vacancies in other Commissions,” Vohra had said on August 21, 2011.

However, State Government remained unmoved and is sitting over appointing the second member.

Even, the SAC mandated to take on bigwigs like Chief Minister, Cabinet Ministers and legislators is without minimum required staff. At present out of five vacant gazetted-cadre posts only three have been filled up in the past one year. Similarly out of 28 non-gazetted posts 16 are still vacant.

Above all, the SAC cannot take the suo-moto cognizance of any issue due to failure of the state government to empower it. Recently, the State High Court held that the anti- corruption watchdog cannot exercise suo- moto powers in absence of inherent powers.

Ends