Allahabad HC Affirms Clean Chit To UP Officer Over 'Post' Claiming Youth In Kasganj Violence Was 'Killed By Bhagwa'

A Bench of Justice Alok Mathur and Justice Amitabh Kumar Rai upheld the order passed by the UP Public Service Tribunal that quashed the punishment order against Rashmi Varun (Respondent), a Deputy Director in the Economic and Statistics Division.

The bench noted that the action against the officer was taken solely on the basis of a Dainik Jagran newspaper report, which she had clearly rebutted. Taking exception to this, the bench observed:

"Despite receiving the reply, the authorities did not even bother to take on record the original Facebook comments made by the respondent but continued to proceed on the basis of the newspaper article".

The bench added that once the officer had 'dissociated' herself from the comments, it was incumbent upon the authorities during the enquiry to verify the actual Facebook comments before proceeding to pass the order of punishment.

For context, in her alleged post, the respondent-officer allegedly stated that a young man was "killed by Bhagwa" (saffron) and that Dr BR Ambedkar had been missing from the rally and had probably been overtaken by the 'Bhagwa Rang'.

Based on the newspaper report on the said post, a chargesheet was issued to her in February 2018, stating that her post amounted to criticism of the Government, which was misconduct under the UP Government Servant's Conduct Rules, 1956.

She responded by stating that the newspaper did not carry her exact post and that a perusal of the entire comment would show that she had not criticised or passed any comment against the working of the Government.

Despite this, a punishment order dated November 2019 imposed a permanent withholding of two increments, along with a censure, upon her. Later, the Tribunal quashed the punishment order.

Challenging the Tribunal's order, the state government moved the HC, arguing that the Tribunal had wrongly interfered in the matter, as the officer had committed serious misconduct by criticising the Government and was correctly punished as per the rules.

Taking into account her alleged post, as well as her stance that the news report did not correctly depict her comments, the bench held that the post wouldn't amount to criticising the government. It said:

"…we find that the respondent merely commented on the absence of Dr. Ambedkar in the rally. We fail to see how this comment would amount to criticizing the Government, especially as there was no reference to the Government or any policies, and the rally of which the mention has been made was a private rally known as "Tiranga Rally" having no affiliation or connection with Government or any of its agencies".

In view of this, the bench approved the findings of the Tribunal and criticised the enquiry report for failing to consider the respondent-officer's reply.

Noting that the impugned order of punishment was passed "without any application of mind", apart from the fact that the comments do not disclose the commission of misconduct under the Rules, 1956, the bench dismissed the petition.