J-K High Court breaks 90-year jinx, gets woman judges
Justice Geeta Mittal will be the new Chief Justice of J-K High Court, while Justice Sindhu Sharma has been appointed as a judge
Expressing serious concern over the pick–and–choose policy in granting prosecution sanction in the infamous Arms License Scam and delaying the matter on one pretext or the other, a division bench of High Court of J&K and Ladakh comprising Chief Justice Tashi Rabstan and Justice M A Chowdhary, on Monday, granted one month’s time to the governments of India and J&K to do the needful by filing status reports indicating the steps taken for granting prosecution sanction with regard to IAS officers and others against whom CBI has sought sanction to produce challans in the designated CBI courts.
The bench, after hearing advocate S S Ahmed with advocates Supriya Chouhan, Rahul Raina, and M Zulkarnain Chowdhary, appearing for the petitioners in the much-publicised Public Interest Litigation, directed that in case the needful is not done well before the next date of hearing, the Court would have no option but to take coercive measures.
The division bench, after referring to the latest status report filed by CBI while expressing grave displeasure over selective prosecution in the Arms License Scam observed that CBI has concluded after an investigation that the Licensing Authorities, i.e. District Magistrates, Gun House Dealers, and other middlemen had hatched a criminal conspiracy for issuance of Arms Licenses illegally in favour of ineligible persons by forging documents in lieu of monetary considerations, yet the competent authorities including the Ministry of Home Affairs have not accorded sanction for prosecution of IAS officers particularly influential bureaucrats for the last many years.
The court observed that the prosecution sanction is being sanctioned by these authorities on a pick–and–choose basis as big fish are still roaming free and the matter is being delayed on one or the other pretext, which is a matter of grave concern.
The Division Bench further observed that one such example is regarding the prosecution sanction of one Kumar Rajeev Ranjan IAS, the then District Magistrate, Kupwara against whom the CBI registered a case on 16/10/2018 pertaining to irregularities in the issuance of large-scale Arms Licenses from J&K under section 6 of PC Act, 2006 and still prosecution sanction against him has not been sanctioned.
The Division Bench also expressed serious concern over the dilatory tactics adopted by the J&K Government for sitting over the matter and observed that now after taking a number of opportunities under different pretexts, the CBI has filed the status report on 15-10-2024 averring therein that the investigation was got conducted district wise looking into the role of each licensing authority for illegal issuance of Arms License for the period 2012 to 2016. CBI in its report has further revealed that during the period between 2012 to 2016, approximately 1.53 lakh Arms Licenses were issued in 10 districts of the Jammu Division and approximately 1.21 lakh Arms Licenses were issued in 12 districts of the Kashmir Division.
The Division Bench further observed that though the status report of CBI reveals that prosecution sanction in respect of certain bureaucrats has been accorded prosecution sanction in respect of certain IAS officers, including Dr. Shahid Iqbal Choudhary, Neeraj Kumar, Ms. Yasha Mudgal, PK Pole, and a few others are still pending.
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