Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Dec 16: After nearly about three years of its constitution, a Cabinet Sub Committee (CSC) comprising eight Cabinet Ministers, four each from National Conference and Congress, set up by the Government to go into recommendations of Justice Sagheer Ahmad (now dead) headed Working Group, is set to submit its interim report by the end of this month.
However, in view of divergent stand of the two coalition partners on autonomy, the interim report was likely to avoid the controversial issues and submit recommendations on other subjects of Sagheer Ahmad Working Group like Centre-State relations, discrimination and problems of refugees etc.
Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather, who heads eight members CSC, told the Excelsior that the Committee would be submitting its interim report to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah by the end of this month.
“The report is very voluminous…exhaustive, yet we have tried to come to a conclusion on various issues taken up by the Working Group and formed our opinion during nearly three years working on it. As complete report would take a long time, we would be submitting an interim report to the Chief Minister, most probably by the end of this month”, Mr Rather said, adding that there were no dissensions among the Committee members as had been projected by certain quarters.
Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh had constituted five Working Groups in Jammu and Kashmir. Of them, four had submitted their reports to Dr Singh while fifth Group headed by Justice Sagheer Ahmad, a retired Judge of Supreme Court, had submitted his report to the Chief Minister in December 2009.
As Sagheer Ahmad Working Group had touched controversial subjects of autonomy, self rule etc besides Centre-State relations, the Chief Minister had set up an eight members CSC to work on the recommendations and formultate an opinion on them.
Official sources told the Excelsior that the CSC had done a lot of work during its number of sittings and reached consensus on some of the issues. However, they admitted that there was difference of opinion on some issues like autonomy and self rule between National Conference and Congress Ministers.
“The issues on which there was a consensus have been discussed threadbare and the CSC would be submitting interim report on them in the next few days”, sources said, adding the Committee has tried to strike a balance to accommodate views of both the ruling parties-the National Conference and Congress (I).
Pointing out that four Congress Ministers in the CSC had objected to Working Group’s reference to autonomy and the NC Ministers’ bid to include the issue in the interim report, sources said the issue was likely to be dropped from the interim report and taken up in the final report.
Sources said the CSC had to tread a cautious path as there were some issues on which there was no consensus among the two coalition partners.
The last extended term of the CSC had expired on September 30. It was on March 30 that the Chief Minister had given an extension of six months to the CSC with a direction to complete the report. Though over two and a half months have passed after extended term of the CSC had ended, the Government was yet to give further extension to it.
However, Mr Rather sounded confident that the term of the Committee would be extended.
The CSC had held nearly 17 meetings but in view of divergent stand taken by National Conference and Congress Ministers, a unanimous report eluded the Committee forcing it seek more time from the Government to prepare a consensus and exhaustive report after submitting interim report by December end.
The Committee members included Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather (chairman), Law & Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ali Mohammad Sagar, Industries and Commerce Minister Surjit Singh Slathia and Transport & CAPD Minister Qamar Ali Akhoon, all from National Conference, Revenue, Relief and Rehabilitation Minister Raman Bhalla, Tourism Minister Rigjin Jora, Health Minister Sham Lal Sharma and PHE, Irrigation and Flood Control Minister Taj Mohi-ud-Din, all from Congress.
The Congress was opposing the demand for autonomy while the National Conference was a strong supporter of it.
Justice Sagheer Ahmed Working Group had touched various sensitive subjects as it had been mandated by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to submit a report on strengthening Centre-State relations and other subjects of discrimination and problems faced by refugees. It had recommended autonomy for the State and a full and final decision on Article 370 of the Constitution of India, granting special status to the State. It had also made a host of other recommendations as per its mandate.
Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh during first stint of United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government had in March 2006 set up five Working Groups in the Second Round Table Conference on Jammu and Kashmir held in Srinagar. They include ‘Working Group on Confidence Building Measures Across Segments of Society in the State’, ‘Working Group on Strengthening Centre-State Relations’, ‘Working Group on Ensuring Good Governance’, ‘Working Group on Strengthening Relations Across LoC’ and ‘Working Group on Economic Reforms’.
Four out of five Working Groups had submitted their reports in April 2007 to the Prime Minister during third Round Table Conference on Kashmir held in New Delhi.
However, report of fifth Working Group headed by Justice Sagheer Ahmed was delayed due to completely divergent opinions given by its members and was submitted by Justice Ahmed to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in December 2009. The Chief Minister had later submitted the report to the Prime Minister.
Justice Sagheer Ahmed has since passed away.
The Working Group No. 5, headed by Justice Sagheer Ahmed, had high profile members like BJP leader and former Law Minister Arun Jaitley, Deputy Chief Minister, Tara Chand (then Speaker), Prof Saif-ud-Din Soz, Choudhary Aslam (all from Congress), Abdul Rahim Rather (then Leader of Opposition) and MY Taing (both NC), Thupstan Chhewang, then MP Leh, Mehbooba Mufti, PDP president, Harshdev Singh, MY Tarigami and Ashwani Sharma (all MLAs) and Dr Ajay Chrungoo among others.
All of them had different opinions with NC batting for autonomy, PDP for self rule, BJP for revocation of Article 370 of the Constitution of India, Congress for 1975 Indira-Sheikh accord, Chhewang for Union Territory status to Leh, Harshdev Singh and Ashwani Sharma for ending discrimination with Jammu region and holding delimitation of Assembly constituencies.
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