J&K Bureaucrats Ask Speaker To Block Statehood Resolution, Omar Abdullah Questions Move

Hours before the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly began debating a resolution seeking restoration of full statehood, Chief Secretary Atal Duloo and Law Secretary Achal Sethi wrote separately to the Assembly Secretariat, arguing that the matter was sub judice and the resolution should not be taken up.

The letters were sent three days after Chief Minister Omar Abdullah moved the resolution and the House admitted it for discussion. The unusual intervention by senior bureaucrats triggered a confrontation between the elected government and the administration over the Assembly's legislative business.

Assembly Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather told NDTV that there was no precedent for bureaucrats writing to the Assembly Secretariat to prevent the House from taking up a matter.

“I don't think there is any precedent, bureaucracy writing to the Assembly secretariat to scuttle the business of the house. That too without the approval of minister concerned,” Rather said.

Omar Abdullah Questions Who Directed Bureaucrats

Abdullah, who also holds the Law portfolio, said he had no prior knowledge of the letters and learnt about them only after the Assembly Secretariat received them.

Speaking in the Assembly before the resolution was passed, Abdullah questioned how the bureaucracy could send a legal opinion against a resolution moved by him when he was both Chief Minister and Law Minister.

“Speaker sir, I'm the Law Minister and also Chief Minister but I have no knowledge of my bureaucracy sending an opinion to you on my resolution. I do not know on whose instructions it was sent,” Abdullah said.

He alleged that the episode indicated that someone else was controlling the bureaucracy in Jammu and Kashmir.

Abdullah also linked the controversy to the Union Territory status of Jammu and Kashmir, saying the episode demonstrated the limitations of an elected government without full statehood.

“Can this happen in any state, where the chief minister moves a resolution and its own bureaucracy acts against it? This can happen only in a Union Territory. And this itself shows the reality of the situation,” he said.

‘Restoration Of Statehood Is A Matter Of Right’

Defending the resolution, Abdullah said the restoration of statehood had become an important political demand after Jammu and Kashmir lost its statehood and special status in August 2019.

He said people of Jammu and Kashmir had been “humiliated” following the changes and argued that seeking restoration of statehood was a matter of their right.

The resolution was subsequently passed by the Assembly amid a walkout by BJP legislators. The BJP has supported restoration of statehood in principle but has opposed references in the resolution and proposed amendments that it says go beyond the statehood issue and touch upon Jammu and Kashmir's pre-August 2019 constitutional position.

The bureaucrats' letters added another layer to the political debate, raising questions over the relationship between the elected Assembly, the Union Territory administration and the bureaucracy while Jammu and Kashmir remains without full statehood.