MUZAFFARABAD: 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 a Jan 29 notification by the KAGB ministry, 44 employees - 35 regular and nine 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 government.

Another two notifications stated that the council’s investment funds to the tune of Rs815.975 million had been transferred to the AJK government along with profit; and 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 was created under the AJK’s interim Constitution of 1974 to “serve as a bridge between the governments in Muzaffarabad and Islamabad.” It comprised six elected members from amongst the State Subject and as many co-opted members from the federal cabinet. However, in the following years, the institution was widely alleged to have become a parallel government without any accountability and answerability to any forum in AJK or Pakistan.

In June 2018, the Raja Farooq Haider-led PML-N government stripped the council of all three - administrative, legislative and financial - powers through the 13th constitutional amendment and, resultantly, not only the administrative control of the Inland Revenue Department, Accountant General’s office and Audit Fund was transferred to the AJK government but a so-called development wing in the council secretariat – largely blamed for receiving kickbacks in development schemes – was also scrapped.

However, ever since shifting of the council’s assets - raised from the AJK taxpayers’ money – to the AJK government was covertly and overtly thwarted by the vested interests under one or the other pretext.

Though the AJK’s sitting coalition government tried to take the credit of the transfer, 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, Khawaja Tariq Saeed, Shujah Khurshid Rathore, Mohammad Haneef Malik, Sardar Abdul Razzaq Khan, Mohammad Adnan Khalid and Mohammad 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 maintained.

Referring to the PC-I of the council lodges, they pointed out that only the elected members and employees of council 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 under its control “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 Rs80 trillion.”

The members also lamented that they had not been taken on board before making any recommendations regarding the fate of the council employees.

Published in Dawn, February 4th, 2024