STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Justice Tashi Rabstan of J and K High Court Jammu Wing on Friday granted four weeks’ last and final opportunity to the then Additional PRO to former Deputy Chief Minister Kewal Sharma for filing his response in the writ petition filed by Prof. S.K Bhalla highlighting undue security cover and alleged accumulation of assets disproportionate to his known sources of income.
Advocate Sheikh Shakeel Ahmed along with Advocates Rahul Raina and Suraj Singh appeared for the petitioner. When this petition came up for hearing Advocate S.S Ahmed drew the attention of the Court to the order dated 27th April, , 2015 when the Court had deferred the prayer to implead Atul Goel and Anand Jain, the former SSPs Jammu as party respondents in the matter on the plea that it would be appropriate to provide opportunity to Kewal Sharma to file his version and Court had granted three weeks time to Kewal to file his response and further submitted that matter was again listed on 21st May, 2015 but reply was not filed by Kewal Sharma just to prolong the matter and today there is no one to cause appearance on his behalf and he requested the Court to close the right of Kewal Sharma as matter is being unnecessarily delayed.
After considering the submissions of Advocate S.S Ahmed Justice Tashi Rabstan granted last and final opportunity of four weeks to Kewal Sharma to file his version in the matter and also directed the Registry to list this matter in the week commencing 6th July, 2015.
Advocate S.S Ahmed further submitted that on Friday the General Administration Department has filed a status report with regard to the ongoing enquiry regarding the alleged accumulation of disproportionate assets by the then Additional PRO Kewal Sharma and according to the said status report the SVO has intimated vide communication dated 6th April, 2015 that the allegations of disproportionate assets accumulated by the subject is under probe in an open verification which is in progress. The status report further says that GAD again requested the SVO to furnish the present status of the case enabling it to proceed further in the matter but the response is awaited from SVO. The report further says that GAD is making every effort to ensure the expeditious completion of the enquiry and has been taking up the matter with the SVO from time to time. JNF