Who is the current Lt. Governor of Ladakh?

CONCEPT: Under the Jammu & Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir was reorganised, with effect from 31 October 2019, into two separate Union Territories: Jammu & Kashmir, which was given its own Legislative Assembly, and Ladakh, which was created without a legislature. A Union Territory without a legislature, such as Ladakh, is administered directly by the President of India through a nominated Lieutenant Governor (LG), who alone exercises executive authority on the President's behalf — unlike the Governor of a full state, who acts on the aid and advice of an elected Council of Ministers.

APPLICATION: When the two new Union Territories came into being on 31 October 2019, two separate Lieutenant Governors were sworn in on the same day: Girish Chandra Murmu for the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir, and Radha Krishna (R. K.) Mathur — a retired 1977-batch IAS officer and former Chief Information Commissioner of India — as the first Lieutenant Governor of the Union Territory of Ladakh. He continued to hold that post through 2020, the period this question (a 2020 Coal India exam question) refers to, and remained in office until February 2023.

CONTRAST:

• Satya Pal Malik was the last Governor of the composite, undivided state of Jammu & Kashmir (2018-2019), before it was reorganised — he was never Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh.

• Girish Chandra Murmu became the first Lieutenant Governor of the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir on the very day Mathur took charge of Ladakh — a different Union Territory.

• Mridula Sinha served as the Governor of Goa, a full state, from 2014 to 2019 — unconnected with Ladakh's Union Territory administration.

Result: R. K. Mathur is the officer who headed the Union Territory of Ladakh as its Lieutenant Governor in 2020.