Jaitley writes to PM, slams J&K autonomy report

BJP leader Arun Jaitley has written to prime minister (PM) Manmohan Singh calling the report of the working group on Centre-state relations recommending autonomy to J&K a farce.

Jaitley represented the BJP on the committee, one of five set up by PM as part of his new approach to issues concerning J&K.

The BJP leader said the alleged consensus on autonomy was the personal opinion of group chairman justice (retd) Saghir Ahmad of the Supreme Court. “A judge is not competent to comment on sensitive political issues. The practice of giving assignments to retired judges and using them to rubber-stamp government agenda has to be deprecated,” he said.

“This is certainly not a consensus document of the working group. The report is a farce in so far it claims to be recommendations of a group. It deserves to be fully ignored,” Jaitley said.