Girish Chandra Murmu, a close aide to Prime Minister Modi and his right-hand Amit Shah, is set to take on the position as the first Lieutenant Governor (LG) of Jammu and Kashmir.
Murmu was appointed as the new LG on Friday along with R.K. Mathur who was also appointed as the LG of Ladakh, the other bifurcated Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
Girish Murmu currently serves as the Expenditure Secretary in the Union Finance ministry. He is a 1985-batch IAS officer and a confidante to PM Modi. Evidently, he has held chief positions in Gujarat and now the Cabinet.
He has served as the principal secretary to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his tenure as CM of Gujarat. He also has served as the defence secretary and is a former Chief Information Commissioner (CIC).
Murmu hails from the Mayurbhanj district of Odisha. He has received his Master's Degree from Utkal University in Bhubaneshwar and an MBA from the University of Birmingham in the UK.
Murmu was named in the Ishrat Jahan’s fake encounter trial as a tutor to witnesses. He was faced with several allegations in the case and one among others was that he was the "deputed to tutor the witnesses who were to depose before Nanavati Commission in 2004".
The allegation was put forward by R.B. Sreekumar, a 1971-cadre IPS officer. According to him, Murmu was “authorised and entrusted with the task of tutoring and briefing government officials deposing before the Nanavati Commission by the highest authorities of the government and Home Department”. Sreekumar also claimed that Murmu trained Ashok Narayan, the then senior-most IAS officer in the state.
Although Sreekumar’s accusation was framed as ‘motivated’ by the Special Investigative Team (SIT) presiding over the case.
Murmu was questioned by CBI in 2013 for being present in a close-door meeting which was allegedly supposed to influence police officials investigating the fake encounter case.
A Tehelka exposé led by Journalist Rana Ayyub, also mentioned Murmu was one of the high-profile individuals whose conversations were recorded by former ATS member G.L. Singhal about the alleged derailment plan of the Ishrat Jahan investigation.
