Friday, December 13, 2024
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Govt staff free to attend political programme, post on social media

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Tripura High Court passes landmark judgement

Agartala: In a landmark judgment the chief justice of Tripura High Court AA Kureshi has ruled that government employees can attend political programmes including meetings and post on social media like Facebook without incurring any punitive measure under Rule 5 of service conduct rules.
In his order, Justice Kureshi said that attendance of government employees in political programmes or meetings or posting of comments on social media cannot be looked upon as controlled by Rule 5 of service conduct rules.
He also dismissed the ongoing inquiry into the social media posts and attendance in a meeting by a retired employee Lipika Paul and ordered the state government to withdraw all allegations against her and clear her retirement dues within two months. The court observed that attending political rally would not be considered as involvement in politics and social media post is a personal liberty.
After BJP-IPFT government, she was suspended from the service four days before her retirement in 2018 following a post of her comment in social media against some BJP leaders that had attracted administrative action. Afterwards, a few more people including an assistant professor in Agartala Govt Medical College was suspended for social media posts.
A writ petition in the high court was filed by Lipika Paul of fisheries department following her dismissal from service four days ahead of her formal retirement on April 25, 2018. The allegation against her was that she had attended a political programme on December 31, 2017 in Swami Vivekananda ground and posted comments on social media.
Senior advocate Purushottam Roy Barman had filed her writ petition against the dismissal order. By invoking various legal provisions, advocate Roy Barman proved that attending a political programme or posting comments in social media is a fundamental right of the employee and for this he/she cannot be proceeded against. Roy Barman also said that the state government is now on a witch hunt which cannot be allowed to go on.
The chief justice accepted the argument and nullified the contention made by government advocate Debalay Bhattacharjee that Lipika Paul had violated service conduct rule.
The court however, ruled that attending meetings and posting comments in social media do not constitute any violation of social media and while passing that all retirement dues of petitioner Lipika Paul be released within two months.
Earlier, in October last year, an assistant professor of Pharmacology in Agartala Govt Medical College (AGMC) Dr Kaushik Chakraborty was put under suspension for a comment in social media on Citizenship Amendment bill (CAB), which sparked off serious reaction among the government employees.
His comment was believed to hurt the sentiment of Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb. (UNI)

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