The six elected members of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Council have expressed serious reservations about a recent move by the ministry of Kashmir affairs and Gilgit Baltistan (KAGB) regarding transfer of the council’s moveable and immoveable assets to the AJK government “without following the Constitution and allied laws and rules.”
According to one of the three notifications issued by the KAGB ministry on Jan 29, 44 employees - 35 regular and 9 on deputation - had been retained in the AJK council secretariat in Islamabad while the remaining 218 employees - 140 regular, 77 contingent and one contractual - were placed at the disposal of the AJK’s Services and General Administration Department in Muzaffarabad.
The second notification said that the investment funds to the tune of Rs 815.975 million had been transferred to the AJK government along with profit and the third notification stated that the allotment, maintenance and utilities of the AJK council lodges building in Islamabad, except for three designated three-bed flats, had also been transferred to the AJK government.
The AJK council, created under the AJK’s interim Constitution Act of 1974 to serve as a “bridge between the governments in Muzaffarabad and Islamabad,” comprised six elected members from amongst the State Subject and as many co-opted members co-opted from the federal cabinet. However, in the years afterwards, it was widely alleged to have become a parallel government, without any accountability and answerability to any forum in AJK or Pakistan.
The council was cut to size by Raja Farooq Haider led PML-N government which stripped it of all three - administrative, legislative and financial - powers through the 13th constitutional amendment in 2018.
As a result, not only the administrative control of the Inland Revenue Department and the offices of Accountant General and Audit Fund was transferred to the AJK government but a so-called development wing in the council secretariat – largely blamed for receiving kickbacks and commissions against development schemes – was also scrapped.
However, shifting of the council’s moveable and immovable assets - raised from the AJK taxpayers’ money – was frustrated by the vested interests under one or the other excuse over the past five and a half years.
Though the sitting coalition government in AJK tried to take the credit of the transfer of assets, the six elected members raised serious concerns and apprehensions over what they alleged infractions of the Constitution, laws and rules during the move, from which they regretted they had been kept at bay for reasons best known to both sides.
In a letter to the AJK premier, a copy of which was also made available to Dawn, Khawaja Tariq Saeed, Shujah Khurshid Rathore, Muhammad Haneef Malik, Sardar Abdul Razzaq Khan, Muhammad Adnan Khalid and Muhammad Younas Meer pointed out that while the KAGB ministry worked under the federal government’s Rules of Business, 1973, the AJK council was governed by the AJK’s Rules of Business, 1983 and therefore, the notifications relating to the affairs of the council should have been issued by the council officers rather than the officers of the federal government (KAGB ministry).
The AJK council chairman (PM Pakistan) did not possess any executive authority to decide the matters of the council and its employees because the 13th constitutional amendment had deleted a constitutional provision to this effect, they added.
Referring to the PC-I of the council lodges, they pointed out that only the elected members of council and its employees could reside therein. However, unfortunately three flats had been withheld for the PM Pakistan and the minister and secretary KAGB in violation of the legal position in this regard, notwithstanding the fact that the trio was already occupying federal government accommodations within a radius of one kilometre from the lodges and as per law no public office holder could simultaneously keep two official residences.
The council members further pointed out that while half of the council’s immovable assets had been transferred to the AJK government, the Jammu Kashmir State Property in Pakistan had been kept by the KAGB ministry "in violation of the Constitution and law."
The transfer of council's funds and council's lodges was just for the sake of the elite class rather than a common Kashmiri, they maintained, stressing that the AJK government should have claimed the possession of Jammu Kashmir State property worth Rs 80 trillion.
The members also lamented that they had not been taken on board before making any recommendations regarding the fate of the council employees.
They urged the AJK premier to take notice of the situation and take them on board before making any final decision in this regard.
All decisions should be made at the session of AJK council to give them legal backing and thus avoid unnecessary litigation in the matter, they concluded.
Tariq Naqash
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