The Ministry of Home Affairs is “actively considering” the CBI’s request for grant of sanction to prosecute eight IAS officers in the multi-crore gun licence scam in Jammu and Kashmir.
Disclosing this to a division bench of the Jammu Kashmir and Ladakh High Court comprising Chief Justice Arun Palli and Justice Rajnesh Oswal, Deputy Solicitor General of India (DSGI) Vishal Sharma submitted that both the Government of J&K and the CBI have replied to the clarifications sought by the Ministry on September 26 and October 14, respectively.
“Currently the matter is under active consideration of the Ministry and a formal decision in this regard is likely in the immediate future,” he told the bench as the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) titled ‘Mohd Shafi & Anr. V/s Union of India & Ors’ came up for hearing on Thursday.
The Bench adjourned the matter to December 30 as the DSGI prayed for short accommodation.
The MHA in its status report dated October 7 had informed the court that its Additional Secretary (UT) at a meeting with the officials of the J&K government and the CBI sought clarifications from the investigating agency regarding “concrete evidence’’ to link the eight IAS officers with the arms dealers in the alleged multi-crore gun licence scam in J&K.
These officers in question are: P K Pole, M Raju, Yasha Mudgal, Jitendra Kumar Singh, Dr Shahid Iqbal Choudhary, Niraj Kumar, Prasanna Ramaswamy G, and Ramesh Kumar.
These officers had issued the gun licences during their posting as District Magistrates in Kathua, Udhampur, Rajouri, Baramulla, Pulwama, Kargil and Leh between 2012 and 2016.
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Prosecution sanction is mandatory to charge public servants such as IAS officers under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The CBI’s request was forwarded to the MHA by J&K government which had already granted prosecution sanction in the case of Kashmir Administrative Service (KAS) officers and other lower-rung employees allegedly involved in the matter.
The CBI is probing irregularities in issuing over 2.74 lakh gun licences between 2012 and 2016 — when J&K was still a state — by district magistrates, deputy commissioners and licensing authorities for “monetary considerations”. Agencies estimate the alleged scam to be worth over Rs 100 crore, with many arms issued “illegally” to armed and paramilitary personnel who were neither residents of the then state nor were posted in the districts concerned at that time.
According to advocate Sheikh Shakeel Ahmad, counsel for the petitioners, nine IAS officers and over 15 JKAS officers were allegedly involved, apart from judicial clerks, middlemen and gun dealers.
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In March 2021, the J&K administration allowed the CBI to prosecute all KAS officers and judicial clerks allegedly involved, leading to chargesheets against them and several middlemen and dealers. However, no decision was taken on the CBI’s request to prosecute the IAS officers. Ahmad said the MHA had permitted prosecution of one IAS officer last year.
