Just 10 months in office, Goa

PANAJIGovernor of Goa Satya Pal Malik was on Tuesday transferred asGovernor of Meghalaya, replacing Tathagata Roy who completed hisfive-year tenure on the gubernatorial post.A Rashtrapati Bhavan communiqué said Malik, Governor of Goa, istransferred and appointed as Governor of Meghalaya.Governor of Maharashtra Bhagat Singh Koshyari has been asked todischarge the functions of Goa governor in addition to his own duties,the communique said.Malik will be taking over from Roy, who completed his five-yeartenure by serving as governor of Tripura for three years and theremaining in Meghalaya.Malik was appointed Goa governor in October last year. He was theGovernor of Jammu and Kashmir when its special status under Article370 was scrapped and it was divided into two union territories.Two months later, Malik was shifted to Goa. He was the Governor ofBihar before his one-year term in Jammu and Kashmir.Malik had clashed with the state government earlier this month over aproposal to build a new Raj Bhavan amid the coronavirus pandemic.He had called the government’s plan “illogical and imprudent”.He had also sharply refuted a statement by Chief Minister PramodSawant, who had quoted Malik as saying the media was giving"wrong information" on the Covid-19 situation in the State.During his stint in Jammu and Kashmir, Mr Malik was linked to manycontroversies. Among the most notable was when he claimed he hadnot received a letter from PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti staking claimto form the government with Omar Abdullah's National Conference in2018. He blamed it on the fax machine in Raj Bhavan, which he saidwas not working that day as there was no staff to operate it.