RK Mathur sworn-in as first L-G of Union Territory of Ladakh

RK Mathur is the first L-G of the union territory of Ladakh after the two UTs of J-K and Ladakh came into existence on midnight Wednesday following a notification by the home ministry.

Radha Krishna Mathur was sworn-in as the lieutenant governor of Ladakh on Thursday morning, hours after Jammu and Kashmir ceased to be a state and was bifurcated into two union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.

RK Mathur was sworn-in as the first L-G of the union territory of Ladakh on October 31, 2019.(Photo: PIB/ Twitter)

Mathur, the first L-G of the union territory of Ladakh, was administered the oath of office by Geeta Mittal, the chief justice of Jammu and Kashmir high court , in Leh.

The warrant of appointment was read by a senior official at the function after which the oath ceremony took place. The L-G inspected a guard of honour of local police after the swearing-in ceremony.

An IAS officer of 1977 batch from Tripura, RK Mathur is a post graduate in Industrial Engineering from IIT and retired as defence secretary in 2015, reports news agency PTI. He was appointed as Chief Information Commissioner in December the same year. He completed his tenure in November last year after attaining the age of 65 years.

In another development, the Centre on Wednesday night appointed Umang Narula as advisor to Mathur and also posted SS Khandare as ‘Head of Police’ in Ladakh.

Watch: Explained | J&K and Ladakh become Union Territories: What it means

 

The status of Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir was changed by the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act 2019, introduced by Union home minister Amit Shah in Parliament on August 5 and later passed by both the Houses.

Ladakh will be a UT without legislature like Chandigarh. It will have two hill development councils.

The UT of Jammu and Kashmir, on the other hand, will have a legislature like Puducherry with an elected legislative assembly and a chief minister.

GC Murmu will be the lieutenant governor of Jammu and Kashmir. He, too, will be sworn in by chief justice of the Jammu and Kashmir HC in a ceremony at the Raj Bhavan later on Thursday.

(With inputs from PTI)