City court asks Payal to vacate govt accommodation in Lutyen’s zone.
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Bilkulonline.com, New Delhi, Aug 16: A court here on Tuesday ordered Payal Abdullah, the estranged wife of former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, to vacate the government accommodation allotted to Omar in 1999 in the Lutyens Zone in Delhi.
Payal claims estate officer of J&K illegally issued notice. “All protectees being provided Z plus category security have a total number of 36 security personnel protecting them, Z category has a security cover of 22 personnel, Y category has a security cover of 11 personnel and X category has a security cover of 5 or 2 personnel and the number of security personnel can not be reduced depending upon the size and location of the accommodation of the protectee”, her reply said. Payal had challenged the estate officer’s eviction order on the ground that the the state did not have the jurisdiction, as the property belonged to the central government.
Sunil Fernandes, the standing counsel for Jammu and Kashmir, said: “The trial court took consideration of a letter that was issued on September 9, 2015 according to which the government of India had allotted the bungalow to the government of Jammu and Kashmir”.
Ms. Abdullah, in her petition in the High Court, said she was served with the vacation notice by the Estate Officer in June, and when Mr. Omar was communicated about it, he replied that they were free to take whatever action they deemed fit as he was no longer living there. It is scheduled to come up for hearing on August 19. Payal had approached High Court claiming that her private apartment is inadequate to accommodate Z+ security for her two sons and Z security for herself.
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The bungalow was allotted to Omar Abdullah, who is also the Nationalist Conference (NC) leader, in 1999 when he was elected to parliament from Jammu and Kashmir and became a minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government at the Centre.
