Administrative Transfers and the Dynamics of Power in Jammu and Kashmir

On 01 April 2025, the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, Shri Manoj Sinha, ordered the transfer of 48 Jammu and Kashmir Administrative Service (JKAS) officers from various departments, including 14 additional deputy commissioners and 26 sub-divisional magistrates. This middle-rung administrative shake-up by the Lieutenant Governor (LG) has created rumblings in the National Conference-led government in the Union Territory and led to a flashpoint between the Raj Bhavan and the Abdullah government over the legal and administrative framework under the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act.

The National Conference (NC) is now using this transfer as a pretext to legitimize its victimhood mentality. Its leadership has claimed that the LG has overstepped his constitutional authority and that the power for such administrative actions lies with the elected government.

The LG, too, has clarified his stance. In an interview with a television channel, he stated that he operates within the framework of the State Reorganisation Act and would never cross the red line.

On 4th April, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah chaired an emergency meeting of legislators of the ruling NC and its alliance partners in Srinagar. After the hour-long meeting convened to discuss the action of the LG, NC legislator and spokesman Tanvir Sadiq, accompanied by Congress MLA Nazimudin Bhat, addressed the media. They stated that two resolutions were passed in the meeting. In the first resolution, the alliance partners strongly condemned the passage of the Waqf Bill in Parliament, stating that the bill was against Muslims and minorities in the country. The second resolution pertained to the LG’s action. It noted that the people’s participation in elections should be respected, and those who do not respect the mandate insult the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Mr Sadiq said that through this resolution, they want to convey to the Government of India that respecting people’s mandate is mandatory.

Two aspects require consideration. Firstly, this matter falls within the domain of the Constitution and law. The standard course of action is to seek clarification through a judicial reference whenever there is a legal or constitutional issue.  By avoiding the option of judicial intervention, the NC has, whether knowingly or not, circumvented the norm and allowed for a range of disrespect towards the law of the land.

Secondly, in the realm of administration, we often encounter deficiencies in conceptual and executive mechanisms. Such circumstances are typically addressed through dialogue and discussion. However, using controversy as a pretext for a stunt against the superior authority by summoning the entire group of party representatives and office bearers- during which the Chief Minister presents a unilateral assessment of a dispute- serves as an indirect demonstration of the party’s confrontational attitude. This display ultimately challenges constitutional authority.

Curiously, the meeting was held at the residence of the Deputy Chief minister, Mr Surinder Choudhary. Present at the meeting convened by the Chief Minister were Mr Farooq Abdullah, the President of the National Conference, all cabinet ministers and NC MLAs, and three Congress legislators led by chief whip Nizamuddin Bhat. Such important meetings, in which accusations of grave concern are hurled against the LG and the Union Government, are generally not held in the private residence of a minister or even a deputy chief minister. These meetings have to be held (essentially for propriety’s sake) either at the headquarters of NC or at the official residence of the President of the NC or the official residence of the Chief Minister. So, why was the protocol flouted?

Holding the meeting at the residence of the Deputy Chief Minister is questionable. The individual has little standing in the party hierarchy, and few people knew him until he won the assembly seat of Nowshera on the NC ticket. Perhaps the choice was made to show that the NC was adhering to the “secularist” ideology of its brand.  Misuse of secularism is nothing new for the tarnished political culture of our times.

In any case, as the emergency meeting was an affair of the NC and its allies (Congress in particular), it should have been presided over by the NC President and not the chief minister. The chief minister, of course, still had the right to present his government’s standpoint.

The organisers had a clear political motive in all these antics. Firstly, it was an indirect message to New Delhi that the NC would not hesitate to launch a mass movement in Kashmir to demand doing away with the UT status and reviving the full-fledged J&K State. In other words, curtailment of the powers of the elected government is not acceptable to the Kashmir Valley political leadership. If the case is so, and definitely, the NC knew about truncated powers of an elected government coming to power under UT proviso, why did it choose to take part in the election, and why did it ask the LG to administer the oath of office? Assembling the rank and file of the party unilaterally and passing resolutions in a closed-door room of a residential house is nothing more than playing a game of intimidation.

Along with passing a resolution warning the Lt Governor and the NDA government of so-called curtailment of powers or trespassing the limits of authority, the group also passed a resolution condemning the Waqf reform bill passed by both houses of the Indian parliament. One fails to see any commonality between the two resolutions, so the purpose remains suspect.

The Waqf bill was passed in parliament through a majority vote. State governments have to accept it, and political parties running the government have an added duty to observe the majority decision of the parliament. The parties, persons, or the government that do not agree with the majority decision in the parliament are free to knock at the court of law. In fact, reports are that two applications have already been submitted to the Apex court challenging the passage of the bill. It must be noted that the NC, both as a political party and as the governing party, can approach the Apex Court to rescind the Waqf Act, but it has not chosen to do so. This is because the Supreme Court has, in an earlier decision, upheld the legal validity of removing relevant clauses in Article 370 and is likely to uphold the powers and authority of the Lt Governor of the UT of J&K enshrined in the State Reorganization Act.

In this case, a cogent point intentionally underplayed is the questionable conduct of the 48 bureaucrats from the state cadre whose transfer order has been issued by the LG’s office. It should be noted that a segment of the Kashmir bureaucracy has a record of pro-separatist and pro-jihadist tendencies. Elements of the Kashmir Valley leadership have notoriously been sympathetic to separatists and subversives. Agencies maintain an updated record of their clandestine activities. Some government officials facilitating separatist activities have been thrown out of government service. In the process, some senior officers in the rank of state cadre suspected of abusing service rules have been transferred to reduce their capability of subversion. 

The decision of the Lt Governor to affect the mass transfer of JKAS officers must be seen as an attempt to help the elected government run an efficient, prompt, and pro-people administration. He is bound by the Constitution and the law to take measures meant to curb anti-national and anti-social activities.