MUZAFFARABAD, Nov 3: The AJK president’s secretariat has taken strong exception to a raid at the office of the Red Crescent Society (RCS), AJK chapter, by a government functionary and asked Prime Minister Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan to take stern action against him, it is learnt.
Prime Minister’s Inspection and Implementation Commission (PMIIC) chairman Haji Gul-e-Khandan had raided the RCS office last month in the presence of media.
The AJK president, who is also chief of the RCS, had sacked the RCS’s chairman, vice-chairman and secretary about two months back following complaints of corruption and mismanagement.
A senior government official was appointed administrator of the RCS to carry out investigations.
However, it was alleged that the raid was conducted at the behest of sacked RCS office bearers who complained to the media that large-scale corruption was taking place, sources said.
The prime minister, the sources said, had been told that under laws, the RCS was answerable to the president, whereas the PMIIC chairman was appointed by the prime minister under an act of assembly to carry out certain functions regarding government departments and their working.
“The offices established under an act of assembly cannot intervene in the affairs and responsibilities of constitutional institutions. This secretariat deems it necessary to point out that the condemnable conduct of Gul-e-Khandan has confounded the affairs of an office falling in the purview of constitutional head (of state) and must be interrogated,” acting president Shah Ghulam Qadir was quoted as saying to the prime minister a few days back.
The acting president, sources said, had expressed apprehensions that if the PMIIC chairman was not reined in, he might resort to conducting raids in other constitutional offices like superior courts, public service commission and election commission.
The president’s secretariat had urged the prime minister to force Mr Khandan to tender a written apology for his conduct so that the sanctity of institutions and writ of the government did not suffer in future, sources said.
