The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court dismissed a petition of the Uttar Pradesh government while upholding the UP Public Service Tribunal’s order quashing a punishment order against a woman officer over a purported Facebook post.
The officer, posted as a deputy director in the Economic and Statistics division of the state government’s Planning Department, had commented on a ‘Tiranga rally’ taken out to mark Ambedkar Jayanti in 2018, stating “Ambedkar was missing from the rally which was overtaken by the ‘bhagwa rang’ (saffron colour).”
She was posted in Saharanpur division when she wrote the purported comment on the social media site in 2018.
The department had ordered an inquiry after filing a chargesheet against her, stating the social media post amounted to the government’s criticism, and it was misconduct under the Uttar Pradesh Government Servants Conduct (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1999.
The inquiry report stated the charges against the officer were proved and it was ordered in November 2019 to “permanently withhold” her two increments and impose a censure on her.
Following this, the officer approached the tribunal challenging the government order.
The tribunal, in its judgment dated December 8 last year, quashed the punishment order.
Story continues below this ad
Then the Planning Department filed the writ petition in the High Court against the tribunal’s order.
The petition stated the officer committed “serious misconduct” by criticising the government and the disciplinary proceedings against her under the UP Government Servant (Discipline and Appeal) Rules were justified and the tribunal interfered wrongly in the matter.
After hearing the submissions, the division bench of Justices Alok Mathur and Amitabh Kumar Rai stated that the officer merely commented on the absence of Ambedkar in the rally.
“We fail to see how this comment would amount to criticising 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,” the bench observed.
Story continues below this ad
According to the order, the officer responded that a newspaper article on the basis of which action was taken against her did not depict her Facebook post correctly. The comment was not related to the government and if it was misrepresented, the responsibility lay with the newspaper, she contended.
The bench said even after her response, the authorities did not bother to take the original Facebook post on record and continued to proceed on the basis of the newspaper article.
Once the respondent had dissociated herself from the article, it was incumbent upon the authorities to verify the actual Facebook post before taking any action, the bench added.
The bench stated in its order, “The enquiry officer, having not even considered the reply of the respondent while submitting the enquiry report and subsequently, the disciplinary authority, not having considered any of the aspects raised by the respondent in her defence, clearly indicate 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.”
Story continues below this ad
“In light of the above, we do find any infirmity in the impugned judgment of the Tribunal. The petition is devoid of merits and is accordingly dismissed,” it added.
