Darbar Move: J&K Govt pays Rs 6952.338 lakhs to 10,112 employees every year for no work. On May 5, 2020, Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) High Court bench consisting of Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Rajnesh Oswal delivered a 93-page landmark judgement on the 148-year-old practice..

..of Darbar Move in J&K (WP (C) PIL No. 4/2020 and WP(C) PIL No. 5/2020). The judgement asked the Union Home Ministry to review this archaic practice, saying that it was undesirable as well as not in the interest of the people of Jammu province, Kashmir Valley, and the nation...

...as a whole. It gave as many as 22 reasons in support of the historic judgement. It, among other things, said that 10,112 employees move from Jammu to Srinagar in April and return to Jammu in October every year; that they do not work for 6 weeks every year; and that the.....

..and that the salary of Move employees for six weeks for which no work is done in the Secretariat comes to Rs. 6952.338 lakhs. “For the year 2019, the disclosed expenditure on the Darbar Moves was to the tune of Rs. 19858.4298 lakhs. “If calculated for the 73 years period....

since independence on this basis, the total expenditure comes to Rs. 1449665.3754 lakhs,” the judgement said. In fact, the judgement very candidly asked: “Can any Government afford the annual expenditure of at least 200 crores to sustain and perpetuate an arrangement of....

...bi-annual shifting of its capital two times a year, which originated in 1972?” Darbar Move is the name given to the bi-annual shift of the secretariat and all other government offices of Jammu and Kashmir from one capital city to another. From May to October, governmental....

..offices are housed in the state's summer capital, Srinagar & the other 6 months in its winter capital, Jammu. Tradition was started during Dogra rule in 1872 by M. Ranbir Singh. The issue of discontinuing the move has occasionally been raised, trust Modi-Shah to remove it.