SRINAGAR: The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh has set aside an order of the Special Judge Anti-Corruption, Srinagar, which had transferred a long-pending corruption case to Kargil, ruling that the move was without legal backing.
The case, titled State through P/S Vigilance Organization Kashmir vs. Habib-ul-Hassan Beigh and others, was instituted in 1999 before the Special Judge Anti-Corruption Srinagar. In June 2022, the trial court ordered its transfer to Kargil, citing a government notification.
Justice Rahul Bharti, however, held that the transfer was not supported either by the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 or subsequent statutory orders. The court clarified that the 2022 government orders empowering judges in Ladakh under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, applied only to new cases under central law and not to pending trials under the repealed JK Prevention of Corruption Act, Svt 2006.
“The transfer of the case to the Special Judge Anti-Corruption, Kargil, is null and void ab initio and accordingly deserves to be set aside,” the judgment stated.
The High Court directed the Principal Sessions Judge (Special Judge Anti-Corruption), Kargil, to return the case records within a month to Srinagar, where the trial will resume. Proceedings already conducted in Kargil will remain valid.
With this order, the corruption trial against Habib-ul-Hassan Beigh and others, pending for over two decades, is set to continue before the Special Judge Anti-Corruption Srinagar. [KNT]
