|| K.LEADER DESK
The double standards of the Jammu and Kashmir government in honouring the orders of the High Court were evident when senior police officer Ashiq Bukhari was inducted to IPS cadre and also allowed to join as Deputy Inspector General of Police while in a similar case of a lower ranking official, the powers that be have preferred to face contempt of court proceedings over implementing the court directions. Khazir Mohammad Dar, the aggrieved officer who retired as Tehsildar in 2003, feels that presence of Basharat Bukhari as the then state Law Minister — a close relative of Ashiq Bukhari was the only reason for the government to implement one order and ignore the other. Dar said he was had written to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi also last month as he had no faith in the state government but nothing happened.
“I wrote to Prime Minister through his Facebook page and faxed my letter to his grievance cell also in hope that he will intervene in my case as the state Law Department, which was then headed by Basharat Bukhari, adopted blatant double standards in implementing orders of the High Court in two identical cases,” Dar said. However, as nothing has come out of my efforts so far, I feel justice is delivered only when executive is convinced about it. In his letter to Modi, Dar has invoked the Prime Minister’s ‘Sabka Nyay’ (justice for everyone) phrase he used in his address on the Legal Services Day on November 9.
“I wrote to Prime Minister through his Facebook page and faxed my letter to his grievance cell also in hope that he will intervene in my case as the state Law Department, which was then headed by Basharat Bukhari, adopted blatant double standards in implementing orders of the High Court in two identical cases,”
“ It was an inspiring speech that you made on the Legal Services Day…’Sabka Nyay’, as you put it Sir that day, has been eluding me for more than a decade,” the retired Tehsildar wrote in his three-page letter. Dar alleged that while the state government lost no time in implementing the court orders in respect of former SSP Ashiq Bukhari, “in my case, the government preferred to approach the Supreme Court with an SLP”. “The only point in preferring to approach the Apex Court seems to be preventing the monetary benefits to me, which are due to me in light of the Court order. “While it is the right of the State Government to explore all legal options, what I fail to understand are the double standards adopted by the State Government in case of induction into the Indian Police Service (IPS) Cadre of Ashiq Bukhari,” Dar said in his letter to the Prime Minister. Dar claims that the monetary benefits due to him were less than half what the state government will have to give out to Ashiq Bukhari.
“Here I would like to point out that once inducted into the IPS Cadre, the minimum pay out due to Ashiq Bukhari is in excess of Rs 40 lakh. In my case, the financial implication may be just 20 per cent of this amount,” he said. Dar pointed out that the only reason he could see for implementing orders in respect of Ashiq Bukhari and appealing in Supreme Court against orders favouring him was the close relation the former police officer had with the former Law Minister. A Division Bench on October 26, 2015 directed the state government to consider the seniority of Bukhari for induction into the IPS from the date he was given charge as Superintendent of Police. The state government has already set in motion the process of his induction into IPS. Dar had joined as a Forest Prosecuting Ranger in Forest Department in 1969 before joining as Naib Tehsildar in 1973. After representations to the government failed to yield any results, he approached the court.
The High Court passed an order in Dar’s favour in March 2012, directing the state government to give monetary benefits due to him in view of his services rendered in the forest department. The government took no action on the court orders for one year after which the retired employee filed a contempt petition. In December 2014, after a gap of two years and seven months, the state government decided to file an LPA against the 2012 order and also sought condonation of the delay. However, the Division Bench in May this year dismissed the application observing “no sufficient cause is given to condone a huge delay of 2 years and 216 days”. While Dar retired from service in 2003 and has been seeking justice for more than 15 years now, Bukhari retired from Service last year and had filed his application in 2013.
