JJM in J&K: Arun Kumar Mehta Responds to Ashok Kumar Parmar

In 2025, The Wire had reported on former IAS officer Ashok Kumar Parmar’s written complaints to the CBI, the Anti Corruption Bureau, the SC-ST Commission and the Union Home Ministry, about some of the  schemes and projects of the government of Jammu and Kashmir. Parmar’s complaints had references to former IAS officer Arun Kumar Mehta, pertaining to his pre-retirement role as chief secretary of J&K.

A factual narration of the written  complaints by one public servant against another, to public institutions, and relating to public functions, was carried in The Wire’s reports.  It is not for a  media house to assert the truth or otherwise of allegations in  complaints, which is for  the  statutory or government bodies to whom they are made  to investigate and process. At the time of the publication of the news reports, various authorities such as the ACB were seized of Parmar’s complaints. 

Before publication, the reporter had reached out to Mehta and other officials of the government of J&K  for comments. Mehta did not respond at the time. Other officials of the J&K administration did so and their responses were carried. Upon coming to know of the ACB’s closure report in one complaint, The Wire updated its story. 

The Wire’s submission to court

Mehta has filed a suit claiming defamation, damages and injunction against Parmar and various media houses that had reported his complaints. The Wire has filed a written response, which is on the court’s record. In court, the Wire’s counsel voluntarily offered that The Wire would even now be prepared to carry his version should he provide it.  The relevant part of the Order dated 03.02.26 of the Delhi High Court is reproduced below:

“3. The learned counsel appearing on behalf of defendant nos. 2, 3 and 5

urges the Court for deletion of their names from the array of defendants. It

is submitted on their behalf that they are media houses and they have only

published the news articles which contains the factual aspect of the

controversy.

1. It is further stated by Ms. Nitya Ramakrishnan, learned Sr. Counsel

appearing on behalf of defendant no.2 that the defendant no.2 had reached

out to the plaintiff in the past and the said defendant is also ready to carry

the plaintiff’s version on its platform. Counsels for other defendants have

also echoed the same submissions.”

Arun Kumar Mehta’s rebuttal

Pursuant to the above, Arun Kumar Mehta has as on February 8, 2026, issued a rebuttal stating that its  purpose is to “ place verifiable facts, institutional records, and procedural realities on record and to correct impressions created by the earlier report that were not supported by judicial orders, documentary evidence, or the governance architecture of the Jal Jeevan Mission’.

His rebuttal is reproduced below :

On 15 April 2025, The Wire published a report titled “As JJM ‘Scam’ Probe Takes  Off, Ex-IAS Officer Seeks Graft FIR Against Former J&K Chief Secretary”,  relying on a letter authored by Mr Ashok Parmar – Defendant No. 1. The report  conveyed the impression of an established “scam” and referred to purported court  rulings dated 12 April, without even preliminary verification. This was not a  minor lapse. When unverified assertions are presented as judicial fact,  journalism’s first obligation—verification—is abandoned.

To place the record straight: no such court ruling existed. A claim of a “court  ruling” is not a matter of interpretation; it is a matter of verifiable record. The  report identified no court, no case number, no bench, and no operative order,  because none existed. Judicial authority was invoked in the narrative to lend  credibility to allegations that were, in fact, unverified and demonstrably false. The attribution of judicial findings where none exist is not a harmless error; it is a  serious distortion of fact.

The report further stated that “whistleblower” Ashok Kumar Parmar had  approached the Anti-Corruption Bureau to book senior authorities for corruption.  This sentence alone contained three material mischaracterisations.

First, it conferred the status of “whistleblower” without establishing disclosure of  any new, verifiable facts. Repetition of reckless allegations already examined and  repeatedly clarified by the Jal Shakti Department does not constitute  whistleblowing.

Second, it withheld a critical fact: that Mr Parmar’s complaints to bodies such as  the CVC, CBI, and NCSC had not been taken cognisance of by any institution,  creating a misleading impression of institutional validation where none existed.

Third, it reported allegations without any plausibility check. Notably, Mr  Parmar’s claims from time to time ranged from ₹1,000 to about ₹14,000 crore,  implicating offices with no role in contract management, and were reproduced  without scrutiny, balance, or context.

The report also carried allegations that the former Chief Secretary had abused  public office and colluded with suppliers. These are grave accusations, but they  ignore the basic architecture of governance under the Jal Jeevan Mission. The  Chief Secretary does not manage contracts. Procurement and execution lie with  the implementing department and are overseen through multiple functional  layers, including the Mission Director, Principal Secretary, and the then Advisor  to the Hon’ble Lieutenant Governor, functioning at the ministerial level. There  were at least three layers separating the Chief Secretary from contractual  decisions. Therefore, no contractual decision, instruction, or deviation  attributable to the Chief Secretary was identified—because none exists.

The allegation that the Chief Secretary “misled the Prime Minister’s Office” is  untenable even on the most basic scrutiny of the Mission’s reporting architecture.  Progress and expenditure under the Jal Jeevan Mission are reported through the  Government of India’s Jal Jeevan Mission Management Information System  (JJM MIS/IMIS), a live digital platform in which data is entered, updated, and  certified by the implementing department. Chief Secretaries are neither data-entry  authorities nor certifying authorities on the JJM MIS. If Mr Parmar believed any  entry was incorrect, the appropriate course—particularly for a senior officer  heading the department—was to have it corrected through the departmental chain.  No such correction was ever made during his tenure. The attribution of  “misleading the PMO” to the Chief Secretary is therefore a manufactured charge,  detached from how the system actually functions.

More fundamentally, the allegation of a “scam” collapses when tested against the  governance architecture implemented during Dr A.K. Mehta’s tenure in the  Finance Department, in addition to the Mission’s control framework.

The Jal Jeevan Mission operated through a multi-layered digital and physical  architecture. No payment could be made without Administrative Approval,  Technical Sanction, and e-tendering. Bills were submitted online and payments  routed exclusively through PaySys, which does not permit disbursement without  mandatory approvals and creates complete audit trails. Execution required  photographic evidence and multiple layers of physical verification within the  engineering hierarchy, supplemented by village-level Pani Samitis, district  oversight, and public scrutiny through Janbhagidari and EMPOWERMENT  portals. Progress and expenditure were reported on the Government of India’s  JJM MIS/IMIS, where data entry and certification rest with the implementing  department, not with the Chief Secretary. RTI replies from the Jal Shakti  Department confirm that these safeguards were not violated, and the Anti Corruption Bureau found no substance in the allegations.

The JJM MIS/IMIS record itself tells a different story. Mission progress during  Mr Parmar’s tenure was the weakest—worse even than during the Covid-affected  years. Implementation accelerated thereafter, and nearly 75 per cent of the target  of universal tap connections was achieved before Dr A.K. Mehta’s retirement.  The Mission’s completion timeline has since been extended to 2028, a policy  decision unrelated to the period in question. Subsequent controversy has  coincided with a sharp slowdown in implementation, with just about 6 per cent  progress thereafter, undermining momentum and harming the Mission’s  objectives.

The pattern of distortion is evident elsewhere. Allegations sought to link the  Reliance General Insurance matter to Dr Mehta despite his not being posted in  Jammu and Kashmir at the relevant time. Similar claims were made regarding  Bajaj Allianz, although the Chief Secretary had no role in engaging any insurance  provider. Both were found devoid of substance by the Anti-Corruption Bureau.

Mr Parmar also characterised the posting of Mr Hamesh Manchanda as  conspiratorial, despite records showing that he himself recommended the posting.  Technical decisions such as the use of HDPE pipes, supported by CPHEEO  guidelines, were mischaracterised as wrongdoing. Settled procedures were  misstated by asserting that technical sanction precedes administrative approval,  contrary to the General Financial Rules, 2017, and by conflating infrastructure  works with material procurement.

The most revealing distortion appears in Mr Parmar’s own correspondence to the  CBI, questioning how ₹3,592.63 crore (about 25 per cent of approved cost) could  yield 74.53 per cent coverage. Nearly 31 per cent of households already had tap  connections before the Mission began, making incremental progress about 44 per  cent, not 75 per cent. Higher physical progress at lower initial expenditure is  neither anomalous nor suspicious; it is often desirable. By the same flawed logic, any contractor completing work before payment would forfeit payment—an  untenable proposition.

Finally, Mr Parmar has repeatedly cited the Tawi Barrage project as evidence of  irregularity. Yet in his own pleadings before the CAT, Jammu Bench (2025), he  acknowledged that the tender was cancelled in April 2022 during his tenure at  ₹59 crore, and that he later obtained Administrative Council approval for the same  project at ₹64.8 crore, despite reduced scope, describing this as an “outstanding  achievement”.

What emerges from the record is not evidence of a scam, but a systematic  distortion of facts, procedures, and performance metrics, amplified without  verification and presented as wrongdoing where none exists.

The digital governance framework implemented during Dr A.K. Mehta’s tenure  introduced unprecedented transparency and accountability in Jammu and  Kashmir. That the Union Territory ranked first in the National e-Service Delivery  Assessment (NeSDA) 2023, ahead of all States and UTs, is a matter of public  record. These reforms replaced discretion with traceability and systems with  scrutiny—an outcome that was not universally comfortable, but was  demonstrably in the public interest.

Mehta adds: Detailed rebuttal including Suit & Complete Set of Supporting Documents,  RTI Replies, ACB Reports are available here.

The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.