J-K Congress President and Sports Minister Peerzada Muhammad Sayeed has compalined to Governor SK Sinha in written requesting his intervention into the probe of J & K Accountability Commission into the multi-crore rural electrification scam, involving his former ministry.Chairperson of the Panel Justice RP Sethi, a retired Supreme Court Judge, is biased against him and therefore the probe cannot be fair, he added. The complaint has come as the still unfolding fallout of the sting operation, which caught Anil Sethi, the Additional Advocate General and the son of Justice Sethi, accepting bribe of Rs 5 lakh from the scam accused reportedly on assurance to prevail on his father to go slow on the case. Subsequently, a PIL was filed by a Mushtaq Ahmed Ganai, one contractor accused in the scam, with the J-K High Court (HC).Peerzada has quoted Section 10 of the J-K Accountability Commission Act, which allows the party being probed to request the Governor to transfer its case to HC in case the party perceives that the Chairperson or any other official of the panel is biased against it. “Without hearing me, the judge (Justice Sethi) went to the media accusing me of being neck deep in the scam. So I wrote to the Governor seeking his intervention,” Peerzada told The Indian Express. “ The complaint to the Governor went yesterday almost around the same time the HC declined to issue notice to Justice RP Sethi in its judgement on the PIL over the sting operation on his son. The Court also sought improvement in audibility of the CD, which recorded Anil Sethi accepting bribe. Peerzada’s request for transfer of the case has caused further difficulties to the fledgeling Accountability Commission—an overarching anti-corruption agency with even the Chief Minister under its ambit—which has already run into rough weather with the sting operation. Besides, their being no superior court to which the case can be transferred, the action has also raised legal questions. The commission was recently set up by former PDP-led coalition over even the Vigilance Organisation to check bureaucratic and political corruption.
