The Hindu : J&K Opposition view accommodated

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 27, 2002

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J&K Opposition view accommodated

By Our Staff Reporter

Jammu Nov. 26. The Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly today unanimously passed a landmark Bill to establish an Institution of Accountability Commission to provide clean administration and enforce accountability at all levels by bringing the office of Chief Minister, Ministers and Legislators under its purview.

The Congress-PDP coalition Government today set a new trend by going out of the way to accommodate the Opposition point of view and adopted amendments moved by them to demonstrate that the new Government's historic Bill had no political vendetta.

The Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Muzaffar Hussain Beig, in his maiden speech in the House, took the Opposition almost by surprise when he announced that the Chief Minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, had instructed him to accept the Opposition point of view. He also announced that the Government had no objection having a committee, comprising the Chief Justice and two seniormost judges of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court for selecting a chairman and its members instead of a seven-member committee, headed by the Chief Minister as mentioned in the Bill.

Justifying the limitation period of seven years for the Commission to take cognisance of complaints, Mr. Beig said this was based on the Lok Pal and other similar Acts. Yet, the Government would go a step forward to delete this section, as this piece of legislation had not been brought in the legislature with some ulterior motive.

Referring to the suggestion for fixing the number of members of the commission along with its chairman in the Bill itself, the Minister argued that it should be left to the rules to be made under the Act as it was not desirable to have a large number of members without much workload. The rules would take care of this aspect, linking it with the quantum of workload before the commission.

Adequate safeguards had been made against witch-hunting or possible maligning of the reputation of a public servant through complaints. The Commission's preliminary enquiry would be confidential and if found false, the complainant would run the risk of a minimum imprisonment of one year.

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