10-05-2007, 07:21 AM
<!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo--> J&K govt invokes Article 370 to deny help to ailing boy
5 Oct 2007, 0207 hrs IST,Anil Kotwal,TNN
JAMMU: Vipul Kaul is too ill to hold the Constitution responsible for his plight but the fact is - if the Jammu & Kashmir government officials are to be believed - the statutory provision of Article 370 is coming in the way of his treatment.
Life has turned for the worse for Vipul and his family after the state government cited Article 370 - that gives the state a special status in the Indian Union - as the reason why it won't pay for the teenager's treatment as directed by the Centre.
Afflicted with a rare disorder called crytorchism - a condition in which a male child's testicles remain undescended - Vipul has been undergoing treatment for this and other complications at AIIMS for the past six years. Then CM Farooq Abdullah had promised to bear the entire expenditure.
While the Abdullah government did pay Rs 14 lakh for the boy's treatment, after the National Conference was ousted in 2002, the Kaul family has been running from pillar to post for compensation.
"I wrote to the subsequent chief minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, saying we needed Rs 26 lakh more to settle all the bills," says Vipul's father Ashok Kaul.
Kaul then wrote to then President Kalam, who asked the Union Home Ministry to direct the state to help the family. A letter from the Home Ministry advising action in the matter arrived at Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad's secretariat in July this year.
"<span style='font-size:21pt;line-height:100%'><span style='font-family:Times'>We were shocked to receive a letter from the secretary to CM Azad informing us that under Article 370, the government isn't bound to obey orders of the Union Home Ministry</span></span>," says Kaul.
Former Deputy CM and now J&K Health Minister Mangat Ram Sharma said he wasn't aware of the letter. On Thursday, the state government ordered a probe into the origins of the letter.
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo--> J&K govt invokes Article 370 to deny help to ailing boy5 Oct 2007, 0207 hrs IST,Anil Kotwal,TNN
JAMMU: Vipul Kaul is too ill to hold the Constitution responsible for his plight but the fact is - if the Jammu & Kashmir government officials are to be believed - the statutory provision of Article 370 is coming in the way of his treatment.
Life has turned for the worse for Vipul and his family after the state government cited Article 370 - that gives the state a special status in the Indian Union - as the reason why it won't pay for the teenager's treatment as directed by the Centre.
Afflicted with a rare disorder called crytorchism - a condition in which a male child's testicles remain undescended - Vipul has been undergoing treatment for this and other complications at AIIMS for the past six years. Then CM Farooq Abdullah had promised to bear the entire expenditure.
While the Abdullah government did pay Rs 14 lakh for the boy's treatment, after the National Conference was ousted in 2002, the Kaul family has been running from pillar to post for compensation.
"I wrote to the subsequent chief minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, saying we needed Rs 26 lakh more to settle all the bills," says Vipul's father Ashok Kaul.
Kaul then wrote to then President Kalam, who asked the Union Home Ministry to direct the state to help the family. A letter from the Home Ministry advising action in the matter arrived at Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad's secretariat in July this year.
"<span style='font-size:21pt;line-height:100%'><span style='font-family:Times'>We were shocked to receive a letter from the secretary to CM Azad informing us that under Article 370, the government isn't bound to obey orders of the Union Home Ministry</span></span>," says Kaul.
Former Deputy CM and now J&K Health Minister Mangat Ram Sharma said he wasn't aware of the letter. On Thursday, the state government ordered a probe into the origins of the letter.