SRINAGAR, Nov 10: Two members of the National Conference party have resigned from a five-member panel of the legislative council to probe allegations of corruption against senior congress leader and Public Health Engineering minister, Taj Mohiuddin.
The panel was set up after Jammu and Kashmir National Pnathers Party, Syed Rafiq Shah in the upper house last month accused Mohiuddin of grabbing huge tracts of firest land.
Members of the legislative council, Khalid Najeeb Suharwardy and Bashir Ahmad Veeri have resigned stating the committee is in “violation of constitutional parameters and doesn’t meet the requirement of justice”, local dailies reported.
The move comes just days after chief minister Omar Abdullah said it was difficult to tackle graft in a coalition government as “many compromises have to be made”.
Observers say the resignations are a tactic by the NC to build pressure on the upper house chairman to dissolve the panel and thus end the probe against their coalition colleague.
The panel will now have to wait for two new members to let the investigations proceed.
Ironically the withdrawal of these legislators from the panel comes not before its first meeting was held recently.
During the recent assembly session Syed Rafiq Shah had displayed revenue and forest department records to support his charges that minister Taj Mohiuddin had taken large measures of forest land illegally.
Mohiuddin had promised to quit from the council of ministers if the allegations were proven true.
But now at least eight legislators of the congress party have written to the upper house chairman, Amrit Malhotra seeking dissolution of the probe panel as they belive “the legislative council holds no jurisdiction over a member of the lower house or the legislative assembly”.
