Centre empowers administration of Ladakh to designate any such authority in neighbouring state or UT as advisory board
Ibni Maqbool
Srinagar, Oct 25: The Union Territories of Ladakh and Jammu & Kashmir are likely to have joint advisory board for detentions under the Public Safety Act (PSA)-1978.
According to “The Union Territory of Ladakh (adaptation of state laws) Order, 2020” the Government of India has amended the Public Safety Act(PSA) to empower the administration of Ladakh to designate any such authority in the adjoining state or Union Territory as advisory board under the law.
“Provided that the administration of Union Territory of Ladakh may, if it deems fit, by order, designate any such authority in the adjoining State or Union Territory as the Advisory Board for the purposes under this Act,” reads the amendments carried out by the Centre.
An advisory board for confirming or rejecting PSA detention orders is already in place in Jammu & Kashmir for the past four decades.
The 3-member advisory panel is headed by former High Court judge Janak Raj Kotwal and comprises of Aijaz Ahmad Mir and Davinder Kapoor.
The Advisory Board is empowered to examine every detention order passed by district magistrates or divisional commissioner under the PSA law, before deciding whether to confirm or reject it.
Under Section 17 of the law, the order of the Board is binding on the government. The panel has also the powers to seek for representation from the person against whom the detention order has been issued within eight weeks.
This will be second joint administrative mechanism between the UTs which were part of the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir till October 30, 2019.Both formally separated and started functioning as separate UTs from October 31, 2019 nearly two months after Centre abrogated Article 370 and cleared Jammu & Kashmir Re-Organisation Act.
In June this year, the Government of India approved Joint Electricity Regulatory Commissioner (JERC) for J&K and Ladakh Union Territories.
“In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section 5 of section 83 of Central Electricity Act, 2003, the Central Government hereby constitutes a Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission for the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh with effect from the date of publication of this notification in the gazette of India,” read the notification issued by the Power Ministry.
It also ordered that the JERC headquarters shall be located in the same city as that of the office of Lieutenant Governor of Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir.
