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Jammu, May 6 - Chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir State Accountability Commission Justice R.P. Sethi has resigned dealing a blow to the government's anti-corruption drive.
The news of Justice Sethi submitting his resignation to Governor Lt Gen (Retd) S.K. Sinha became public Saturday. When approached by reporters at his residence, Justice Sethi refused to comment.
However, sources in the commission said that his resignation had become 'inevitable' in the present circumstances and conditions.
They said the chairman was not happy with the appointment of two more members to the commission last month, as it curtailed his powers he enjoyed as a single-person commission. He also refused to shift the commission's office to summer capital Srinagar as a part of the bi-annual shifting of the government offices from winter capital Jammu to the summer capital, they added. He was allegedly facing political pressure.
The Mufti Sayeed Government constituted the commission in July 2005 with justice Sethi, a retired Supreme Court judge, as its chairman, to probe corruption charges against high-profile officials.
However, the government's anti-corruption drive was blunted when Justice Sethi's son Anil Sethi, then additional advocate general, was caught on camera accepting a bribe of Rs.2 million for diluting a corruption case. He resigned but Justice Sethi continued to function as the chairman.
Political leaders had brought charges against Justice Sethi in the assembly, alleging that he was leaking details of corruption cases brought before the commission to the media even before starting the investigation.
Deputy Chief Minister Muzzaffar Hussain Baig, who is also the law minister, had suggested that the commission's chairman should not set off the media trial before the trial began in his own commission.
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