By: Afaq Bhat
Srinagar: After 149-years, there will be no Darbar Move in Jammu and Kashmir. The practice was started by Maharaja to shift the seat of power during winter to Jammu and in summers to Srinagar.
In June this year the government had stated that administration has completed transition to e-office, there was no need to continue the practice of the biennial ‘Darbar Move’ of the government offices.
All officers allotted the ‘Darbar Move’ accommodation at Jammu and Srinagar were asked to vacate the same. The government had stated that the decision to end the biennial ‘Darbar Move’ would save the exchequer Rs 200 crore each year. Government offices will now function normally at both Jammu and Srinagar.
In May 2020, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court had observed that there was no “legal justification or Constitutional basis” for the Darbar Move. A bench comprising Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Rajnesh Oswal, said that the Darbar Move resulted in “wastage of tremendous amount of time, efforts and energy on inefficient and unnecessary activity (say, packing of records).
The court had asserted that while the Union Territory is not being able to provide even basic essentials to its people, “valuable resources of the State — financial and physical — cannot be diverted to completely non-essential usage.”
The court did not issue any direction to the authorities, taking note of the limitations on its jurisdiction. It had put the ball in the court of authorities to take a final call over the issue.
After the government announced its decision to revoke the Darbar Move practice, many people in Jammu resented the decision saying that it would hit the economy of the Jammu region. But the government has not changed its decision.
It’s in place to mention here that Darbar Move offices used to close in Srinagar in October every year and reopen in Jammu in November. Shifting of files from Srinagar to Jammu and vice-versa always used to be a hectic process. Former chief minister of J&K Dr Farooq Abdullah had made an attempt to scrap the Darbar Move practice in mid eighties but after facing protests in Jammu region the order was rescinded.
An analyst while talking to Precious Kashmir said, “The scrapping of Darbar Move practice was on cards for a longtime but the practice continued as the politicians did not want to take any such decision that could have triggered resentment against them. But now it seems that the 149-year old practice of shifting the highest seat of power every six months has become a history.”
Darbar Move becomes history, Sgr Civil Secretariat remains open
