Satyapal Malik, the last governor of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, died on Tuesday at the age of 79 after a prolonged illness, his personal staff said.Malik passed away at around 1:12 pm at Delhi’s Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital and had been in the ICU for a long time, receiving treatment for various ailments, the staff said.”It is with deep regret that we confirm the demise of Satyapal Malik, who had been receiving intensive care at our facility,” the RML authorities said in a statement.The patient had a longstanding history of diabetic kidney disease, hypertension, and other chronic health issues, including morbid obesity and obstructive sleep apnoea, they said.According to the hospital statement, Malik was admitted to the hospital on 11 May at 12:04 pm with a complicated urinary tract infection. He subsequently developed refractory septic shock secondary to urinary tract infection, hospital-acquired pneumonia, and multi-organ dysfunction.”Despite all appropriate and aggressive medical interventions, including multiple antibiotics and CytoSorb 2 sessions, ventilatory support, and critical care management, his condition continued to deteriorate,” the hospital’s statement said.”He also developed disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) and acute kidney injury on chronic kidney disease, needing multiple haemodialysis sessions. Malik sadly passed away on 5 August 2025 at 1:12 pm,” it added.Notably, Malik served as the 10th and final Governor of Jammu and Kashmir from August 2018 to October 2019. It was during his tenure that the Union government revoked Article 370, stripping the state of its special status and splitting it into two union territories. Coincidentally, he took his last breath on the sixth anniversary of the Centre’s move.Malik attracted a lot of controversy after alleging that he was offered a bribe to clear files of two major projects in Jammu and Kashmir and questioned the BJP-led central government over issues related to farmers and the Pulwama terror attack, among others.The CBI, which took over the probe into the two issues flagged by Malik, had filed a charge sheet against him in May this year in one of the cases about the ₹2,200-crore Kiru hydropower project.Malik’s political career spanned more than five decades across multiple parties and states. He was first elected as a legislator from Baghpat with the Bharatiya Kranti Dal, founded by former Prime Minister Charan Singh. He later served as a Rajya Sabha member from Uttar Pradesh between 1980 and 1989, and was elected to the Lok Sabha from Aligarh in 1989 on a Janata Dal ticket.Malik also served as the national vice president of the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2012 and was reappointed in 2014. He also held several gubernatorial posts in the final phase of his public life.He was appointed Governor of Bihar in 2017, briefly held additional charge of Odisha in 2018, and served as Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, Goa, and finally Meghalaya, before demitting office in October 2022.
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