SRINAGAR: The Lt Governor administration in Jammu and Kashmir has asked PDP chief and former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, who has been very critical of Article 370 revocation, to vacate her Fairview residence on the highly-secure Gupkar Road in Srinagar.
Official sources said an eviction notice was sent to Mehbooba on October 15 by J&K Estates Department under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorized Occupant) Act, 1988 read with the Amendment Act 2016. Fairview has been the official residence of Mehbooba and her late father, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed when they were Chief Ministers of erstwhile J&K state.
In the erstwhile J&K state, a former Chief Minister was entitled to lifelong official accommodation. However, the law that permitted former CM to occupy official residences for life was amended by the Centre in 2020, a year after scrapping J&K’s special status and bifurcating J&K state into two Union Territories.
The PDP chief has confirmed receiving the notice and said she was considering legal options to challenge it. The Fairview was used as an official guest house and was known as Fairview Guest House till 1989. However, after the outbreak of militancy, it was taken over by BSF and it was turned into a detention centre named Papa-II.
In 1996, the Fairview guest house was used as an official residence by then J&K Chief Secretary Ashok Jaitley. It was renovated in 2003 and used as an official residence by then Finance Minister Muzaffer Hussain Baig. In 2005, when Mufti Sayeed completed his 3 years of the term as chief minister of PDP-Congress coalition government, he moved in along with his daughter Mehbooba Mufti to the Fairview and since then Muftis have been living there and it has been their address in Kashmir.