Letter from Chief Minister Jammu and Kashmir State to Maharaja Pratap Singh July 2,1919
In accordance with the direction contained in Your Highness’s letter dated the 28th January 1919, I communicated officially to the Resident in Kashmir Your Highness’s request for the grant of full and unrestricted powers in the control of the administration of the State and asked him kindly to move His Excellency the Viceroy to accord his sympathetic and favourable consideration to it.
The Resident laid Your Highness’s request before His Excellency the Viceroy and has communicated His Excellency’s decision thereon in his letter No. 180-C dated the 28th May, 1919.
I laid this letter before Your Highness and explained its contents. In accordance with Your Highness’s verbal orders the changes sanctioned by His Excellency are explained below:
(a) Method followed in respect of the tendering of advice by the Resident in matters of importance.
The procedure in vogue is that a proposal is first submitted to Your Highness for sanction. If it is sanctioned by Your Highness, it is referred to the Resident for approval. In future the procedure will be that it will first be laid before Your Highness. If it is approved or sanctioned by Your Highness, it will be referred to the Resident by the Chief Minister demi-officially for advice. The case will be again laid before His in Highness for final orders after the Resident’s advice has been obtained. The present method will thus be altered so as to ensure that the Resident’s advice will in all cases be obtained before and not after a proposal is submitted to Your Highness for sanction.
(b) Submission of fortnightly synopsis of proceedings and orders passed by Your Highness.
In accordance with the condition (viii) of Lord Curzon’s Kharita dated the 30th August 1905, a synopsis of orders passed by Your Highness in certain cases is to be forwarded to the Resident fortnightly. The Government of India have agreed that orders passed under headings (a), (c), (d), (e), (f) and (g) need no longer be reported, provided that any orders passed in these classes of cases, which are contrary to or involve any important established principle, are, communicated by the Chief Minister to the Resident, but orders passed under (b) and (h), viz., (1) orders appertaining to the frontier, should continue to be reported.
(c) Preparation of Budget
The holding of the annual Budget meetings will be discontinued. The Budget estimates will in future be submitted to the Chief Minister who, after consulting Your Highness, will take the advice of the Resident with regard to individual items included in the Budget will not be required if the expenditure is devoted to the purpose for which the allotments are made. Your Highness will also be able to sanction expenditure up to a limit of Rs. 20,000!- on the entertainment of Ruling Chiefs and other distinguished guests visiting Kashmir which cannot at present be incurred without Resident’s approval.
It may be added that subject to the limitations imposed by the first five conditions laid down in Lord Curzon’s Kharita dated the 20th August 1905 as subsequently modified; Your Highness possesses and can exercise powers of veto, revision and review in all cases.
It may also be stated that the Government have sanctioned an increase in Your Highness Privy Purse allowance from 101akhs per annum with effect from the Baisakh, the commencement of the current financial year.
If Your Highness approves, the revised procedure will be introduced forthwith.
Approved. The action may please be taken accordingly
Sd/
Pratap Singh, Maharaja
Lieutenant General, G.C.S. I.,
G.C.I.E., G.B.E., L.L.D., 23-7-1919.
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