AKSHAY AZAD
Jammu, Feb 12: Two days after Chief Minister Omar Abdullah divested Peerzada Muhammad Sayeed of Education portfolio, the JKPCC chief Prof Saifuddin Soz justified   his move saying, “He (Chief Minister) has the prerogative to rectify anything that goes wrong in any institution of the government.”
 Talking to reporters at the sidelines of a rally here, Soz said, “Whenever anything goes wrong in the system CM has to rectify it and he did. The system in the given situation has to run fairly.”
 Soz said, "He (Omar) is aware of developments.  Wherever there are procedural faults etc - he will rectify them."
 Pertinently, the former Education Minister Peerzada Muhammad Sayeed was caught in midst of controversies when this newspaper broke a story about how he had helped his foster son, Imam Souban, qualify the matriculation examination in 2009. Following which Chief Minister Omar Abdullah summoned the minister and asked the Crime Branch of Jammu and Kashmir Police to look into the allegations and submit its report within seven days.
 The CB submitted its report last week and vindicated the story carried by Greater Kashmir. The report stated that there were irregularities in the answer scripts of Imam Souban and these were written in two handwritings. This newspaper had published the manipulated answer scripts of Urdu and Mathematics papers of Peerzada’s foster son. 
 After CB submitted the report, Chief Minister forwarded it to Congress high command which after going through it asked Peerzada to step down.
 Omar had assured action against Peerzada within 24 hours.
 Peerzada instead of sending his resignation to the Chief Minister sent it to UPA chairperson and the AICC Chief Sonia Gandhi. He (Peerzada) claimed that his resignation from council of ministers was not accepted by the Congress high command and he continues to be the Minister for Public Enterprise.     
 Prof Soz refused to divulge any detail about Congress high command turning down Peerzada’s resignation. He avoided media queries saying, “I don’t want to comment further on the issue,” he said.
 Earlier, while addressing the rally Prof Soz took a dig at Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) saying it follows divisive policy, while the Congress party was as a bouquet of all religions with humanistic ideology.
 “It is only the Congress party which has its base in all the six lakh villages of the country. Ideology of Congress party is purely based on humanity and secularism, which is also the pride of our country India,” he asserted.
 He said the base of Congress party is being strengthened in all the three regions of the state and appealed the gathering to spread the message of Congress party in every nook and corner of the state.

Lastupdate on : Sun, 12 Feb 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 12 Feb 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:00:00 IST