Kashmir autonomy report is 'farce': BJP

In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday rubbished the report of the Working Group on autonomy to Jammu and Kashmir as "farce" and opinion of the Judge who headed it, even as it asked the government not to use retired Judges to "rubber-stamp" its agenda.

"This report at best is the personal opinion of Justice (Retd) Saghir Ahmad... It is certainly not a consensus document of the Working Group. The report is a farce, so far as it claims to be the recommendations of the Working Group, it deserves to be fully ignored," BJP leader Arun Jaitley, a member of the Working Group, said in his letter to Dr Singh.

He argued that this report was filed though the Working Group had not met since September 3, 2007, 'to show to some sections of the international community that it was willing to dilute the Indian position on Jammu and Kashmir'.

"The crucial question, however, would still be as to why over two years after the virtual abandonment of the Working Group, this report was unilaterally authored? What was the compulsion to by-pass the Working Group and produce the report," he asked.

Having accused the government earlier of providing 'employment' to Justice (retd) M S Liberhan for 17 years by giving several extensions to the Commission headed by him to look into the Babri Masjid demolition case, BJP sought to make a similar charge here.

"The practice of providing assignments to retired Judges and using them to rubber-stamp a government's agenda has to be deprecated," Jaitley said.