AS officer Girish Chandra Murmu has been appointed as the Lt Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, according to an official spokesperson. A 1985-batch IAS officer with a reputation for industriousness, Girish Chandra Murmu currently holds the post of Expenditure Secretary in the finance ministry.
Girish Chandra Murmu was the principal secretary to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his tenure as CM of Gujarat. He is considered to be a close confidant of the prime minister and thus held key administrative positions in Gujarat.
The two Union Territories will come into existence on October 31. The Modi government had on August 5 abrogated provisions of Article 370 that granted a special status to Jammu and Kashmir.
Parliament approved the resolution in this regard and also passed the bill on the bifurcation of the state into two Union Territories.
On August 9, President Ram Nath Kovind gave assent to the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, bifurcating the two Union Territories.
What about the laws?
The Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir will have a Lieutenant Governor and the maximum strength of its assembly will be 107, which will be enhanced to 114 after a delimitation exercise.
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Twenty-four seats of the Assembly will continue to remain vacant as they fall under Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
Powers of the Lieutenant Governor
All India Services like the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and the Indian Police Service (IPS), and the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) will be under the control of the L-G and not the elected government of the UT of J&K.
Common high court for the UTs
On and from the appointed day, that is October 31, when the two newly created UTs will come into existence, the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir shall be the common high court for the UTs of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
Meanwhile, IAS officer Radha Krishna Mathur has been appointed the Lieutenant Governor of the Union Territory of Ladakh. The incumbent governor of the state, Satya Pal Malik, has been moved to Goa, a Rashtrapati Bhawan statement said.