Jammu: The high court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh has dismissed an application filed by two IAS officers—Pandurang Kondbarao Pole and Shahid Iqbal Choudhary—seeking intervention in a public interest litigation (PIL) to prevent the department of personnel and training (DoPT) from issuing prosecution sanction against them in the arms licence scam.
The MHA report confirmed that after consulting investigating agencies and the J&K government, it had finalised its opinion and forwarded it to the DoPT for a final decision. Following the dismissal, advocate SS Ahmed, representing the PIL petitioners, highlighted a status report filed by the ministry of home affairs (MHA) pursuant to the court’s July 6 order. The bench re-notified the PIL for hearing on December 23. The CBI is seeking prosecution sanction against eight IAS officers accused of illegally issuing arms licences for monetary gains while serving as district magistrates between 2012 and 2016: Pandurang Kondbarao Pole, former DM, Udhampur; M Raju (AGMUT:2005), former DM, Kargil; Yasha Mudgal (AGMUT:2007), former DM, Udhampur and Baramulla; Jitendra Kumar Singh (JH:2008), former DM, Kathua and Rajouri; Dr Shahid Iqbal Choudhary, former DM, Udhampur; Niraj Kumar (AGMUT:2010), former DM, Udhampur and Pulwama; Prasanna Ramaswamy G (AGMUT:2010), former ADM, Kathua and DM, Leh; and Ramesh Kumar (AGMUT:2011), former DM, Kathua.
Bhushan contended that prosecution sanction requires a case-by-case assessment rather than the application of deemed sanction, requesting that the court direct the competent authority to consider their representations. Rejecting the plea, the division Bench noted: “This court deems the issuance of such a direction to the respondent authorities unwarranted… The reason why this court has not accepted the application is that merely the gist of the submission made by the senior counsel was that unless the court directs there will not be proper application of mind by the respondents, which does not seem to find any favour of the court. When the counsel sought leave to withdraw the application and pursue statutory remedies, the Bench observed that no such liberty was required from the court and dismissed the application as withdrawn. Ahmed urged the court to direct the DoPT to submit its final decision. Taking note, the division bench directed deputy solicitor general of India (DSGI) Vishal Sharma to submit a comprehensive compliance report on all past court orders.
