Jammu: The high court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh has dismissed an application filed by two IAS officers—Pandurang Kondbarao Pole and Shahid Iqbal Choudhary—seeking intervention in a public interest litigation (PIL) to prevent the department of personnel and training (DoPT) from issuing prosecution sanction against them in the arms licence scam.
A division bench, comprising chief justice Dr Pushpendra Singh Bhati and justice Rajnesh Oswal, dismissed the application on November 3.
Pole, an AGMUT-cadre IAS officer of the 2004 batch, is currently secretary of Land and Building, NCT of Delhi, and Choudhary, a 2009-batch AGMUT cadre officer, is secretary, Government of Arunachal Pradesh. Through senior advocate Sakal Bhushan, they prayed for directions compelling the DoPT to consider their representations before acting on the CBI’s sanction request.
Bhushan contended that prosecution sanction requires a case-by-case assessment rather than the application of deemed sanction, requesting that the court direct the competent authority to consider their representations.
Defence arguments rejected
Rejecting the plea, the division Bench noted: “This court deems the issuance of such a direction to the respondent authorities unwarranted… The reason why this court has not accepted the application is that merely the gist of the submission made by the senior counsel was that unless the court directs there will not be proper application of mind by the respondents, which does not seem to find any favour of the court.”
When the counsel sought leave to withdraw the application and pursue statutory remedies, the Bench observed that no such liberty was required from the court and dismissed the application as withdrawn.
Following the dismissal, advocate SS Ahmed, representing the PIL petitioners, highlighted a status report filed by the ministry of home affairs (MHA) pursuant to the court’s July 6 order. The MHA report confirmed that after consulting investigating agencies and the J&K government, it had finalised its opinion and forwarded it to the DoPT for a final decision. Ahmed urged the court to direct the DoPT to submit its final decision.
Taking note, the division bench directed deputy solicitor general of India (DSGI) Vishal Sharma to submit a comprehensive compliance report on all past court orders. The bench re-notified the PIL for hearing on December 23.
Case background
The CBI is seeking prosecution sanction against eight IAS officers accused of illegally issuing arms licences for monetary gains while serving as district magistrates between 2012 and 2016: Pandurang Kondbarao Pole, former DM, Udhampur; M Raju (AGMUT:2005), former DM, Kargil; Yasha Mudgal (AGMUT:2007), former DM, Udhampur and Baramulla; Jitendra Kumar Singh (JH:2008), former DM, Kathua and Rajouri; Dr Shahid Iqbal Choudhary, former DM, Udhampur; Niraj Kumar (AGMUT:2010), former DM, Udhampur and Pulwama; Prasanna Ramaswamy G (AGMUT:2010), former ADM, Kathua and DM, Leh; and Ramesh Kumar (AGMUT:2011), former DM, Kathua.
According to a CBI report submitted on December 31, 2024, 1.53 lakh arms licences were issued across 10 districts in the Jammu division, and 1.21 lakh across 12 districts in the Kashmir division during the period under review.
The MHA has already granted prosecution sanction against another IAS officer, Kumar Rajeev Ranjan, on December 31, 2024. The probe was originally handed over to the CBI after former J&K governor NN Vohra uncovered the illegal licensing network.