by Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

Of the 50-odd cases related to Jammu and Kashmir or the residents of this Union Territory, which the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has taken up or investigated in the last 32 years, the Kashmiris remember only one conviction. In 1993-96, ex-Minister Mohammad Dilawar Mir’s firm M/S Good Friends Agencies was wrongly awarded a contract for the sale of urea by the National Fertilisers Ltd (NFL). In November 2014, a CBI court in New Delhi awarded three years imprisonment and imposed on him a fine of Rs 3.21 crore.

Mir, then PDP’s General Secretary and candidate from Rafiabad, was barred from contesting the assembly elections, but his sentence was suspended till 2 January 2015. Consequently, Mir’s son Yawar contested, and he became the assembly’s youngest member. In March 2015, PDP formed the government in a coalition with the BJP. Mir didn’t spend a day in jail. Having served as MLA and Minister in different governments from Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s to Ghulam Nabi Azad’s, he is now a founder leader of the Apni Party.

So, when the CBI launched a chain of raids on properties of some powerful persons, including the former Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu, in Srinagar, Jammu and Mumbai on 10 April 2022, there was considerable cynicism and scepticism. Few believed that the investigation would be taken to its logical conclusion.

While the erstwhile State’s own Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) completed investigations or filed charge sheets in several matters lingering for long in the last three years, the Central investigation agencies have been remarkably proactive in Jammu and Kashmir after its reorganisation in August 2019. But that’s not enough to restore the credibility they have lost due to political and bureaucratic interference from New Delhi.

Unlike the Central agencies, most of the ACB’s cases pertain to the alleged corrupt practices of the junior public servants. Very few of the senior J&K Administrative Service (JKAS) and IAS or IPS officers have been proceeded against, primarily because they happen to be either batch mates or seniors of the top functionaries of the organisation.

Read the full story here:- https://theprobe.in/cbi-must-be-free-of-political-influence-to-restore-credibility-in-jammu-and-kashmir/