It cost R K Gupta 20 nail-biting years and his career to prove his employer, the Union Home Affairs Ministry, wrong in branding his wife’s job as a receptionist at the Egyptian Embassy a “breach of national security”. Thanks to a recent intervention from the Delhi High Court, the 53-year-old Assistant with the MHA is waiting for a promotion as Section Officer, says his lawyer Raman Oberoi. Gupta’s troubles started in March 1980 when his wife was selected as a receptionist with the Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt here. It is mandatory that a staffer should apply to the “Ministry/Department concerned for permission before wife or dependant intends to take up employment with a foreign mission in India or with any foreign organisation”. Though Gupta applied to the Home Ministry about his wife’s appointment he did not receive any reply for the next eight years. He was in for a surprise when in 1988, the Intelligence Bureau took an objection to his wife working with a foreign mission and sent him a communication on May 16, 1989 to “direct” his wife to leave her job. But Gupta’s wife refused to quit. The ministry again chose not to act for another four years, until on March 5, 1993, it filed a chargesheet against Gupta for “disobeying the directions of the Government of India”. Back to sleep again, the ministry “woke up” on May 2, 2000 to find Gupta guilty and promptly dismissed him. Gupta went on to fight the ministry before the Central Administrative Tribunal for another eight years, at the end of which the Tribunal ordered the Government to reinstate him in February this year. The decision saw the ministry rushing to the High Court for reprieve. The court, in a recent order, dismissed the ministry’s allegations. Justice Lokur observed, “If Gupta was guilty of not taking prior permission, action should have been taken by the Ministry in March/April, 1980 itself or immediately thereafter. There is absolutely no justification for them to wake up after eight years and then seek to stress upon a condition which is today no longer applicable.” Dismissing the ministry's challenge, Justice Lokur concluded that “having kept silent for eight years, if not 13 years in all, the ministry has given tacit consent to Gupta's wife working as a receptionist in a foreign mission in New Delhi.”
