Politics and politicians ought to have been exemplary in integrity and honesty in every sphere in our country so that the institution of politics itself should have been commanding great respect and approbation. Corruption, illegal means adopted to amass fortunes and claiming to having a licence to treat the public assets as personal fiefs and a virtual immunity to indulge in illegal activities including criminalising politics etc should have no connection with politics and governance. When a passenger reaches one’s destination or completes the journey , one must alight from the train and continuing to occupy the seat beyond the destination without any cogent reason or legitimacy must be met with forcible eviction plus recovering penal charges. Most decidedly, those of the ex-ministers who have unauthorised (ly) and illegitimately been occupying posh ministerial bungalows in Jammu and Srinagar, when in power, would have given such orders to be executed for “other defaulters” . What have they to say in a situation when they continue themselves to remain adhesively clung to posh ministerial houses and Government quarters even years after they had to demit their offices and had, therefore, no locus -standi or any justification, as such, in occupying such places of public property. We are afraid, people for these very acts on the part of such unscrupulous politicians abhor and deride politics and even such type of politicians.
On the other hand, the Department which has to ensure entire transparency and implementing the procedures and practices in respect of forcible , illegal and unauthorised occupation of public buildings , the Estates Department is found quite reticent in not openly declaring the ”constraints” and pulls and pressures and from whom that keeps them from and in not going ahead against such unauthorised occupants whom we may safely call encroachers. In most of the cases, which otherwise fall under the domain of the executive, action is taken only when courts intervene as a result of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) or some other legal remedy which is invoked by a plaintiff and in the instant case, in similar circumstances, Divisional Bench of the High Court presided over by the Chief Justice, has expressed deep anguish over the failure of the Estates Department in taking the required but ”serious” steps for eviction of the illegal occupants from the Government bungalows and residential quarters .
These illegal occupants sticking to these places of public property for years in a row , some for even decades, comprise the next of the kin of ex-CM like late G. M. Shah, former Deputy CM Kavinder Gupta, former Minister Choudhry Lal Singh , Sunil Sharma ex-Minister, Ravinder Raina ex-MLA and President BJP , R. S. Pathania, G .M.Saroori, Sat Sharma ex-Minister, Vikar Rasool Wani, Prof. Bhim Singh , Ashok Khajuria, Wazira Begum, Hakim Mohd. Yaseen, Ghulam Nabi Lone, Syed Farooq Andrabi, Zahoor Ahmed Veer etc . The list is just illustrative and the exhaustive one is published in a news item in our edition of December6. The Estates Department having revealed the names of these illegal and unauthorised occupants comprising ex-Ministers, ex-MLAs, MLCs, Councillor SMC and even some so called “political activists” throw enough light on how rules are violated so brazenly even by those who themselves have remained law makers.
Such a bad precedence of overstaying without any entitlement of any sort not only violates the judgments of the Supreme Court that has ruled that after demitting the office, ex-Ministers /ex-bureaucrats were not entitled to any government accommodation but undermined and trampled upon the ethical standards and propriety which most of eminent politicians have established in the country. Ex-Union Ministers Sushma Swaraj , Arun Jaitley and many others are a few examples in this respect. To keep continuing such occupation and to gain time , there are some court cases , stay orders, court directions etc that reportedly bind the Estates Department from proceeding in the matter. While these cases need to be monitored and followed up vigorously, all other cases needed and merited immediate eviction.
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