Sunday, July 7, 2013

Letter to Editor of "The Sunday Guardian"



To,
The Editor,
The Sunday Guardian

Subject- Article titled “Akhilesh loses ground in UP, Mulayam loses hope” dated 06/07/2013
 
Respected sir,
            
 Kindly refer to the Article titled “Akhilesh loses ground in UP, Mulayam loses hope” dated 06 July 2013, which says- “A certain level of anarchy has been unleashed in the functioning of the party.”  Among other things it also refers to me saying-“Officers in the UP government are also kicking off discipline. A senior PCS officer Hari Shankar Pandey filed an FIR against three IAS officers for harassing him. A senior IPS officer Amitabh Thakur files PILs with an alarming regularity, in complete disregard of service rules.”

Thus the article, in a way, charges me of filing PILs on a regular basis, “in complete disregard to service rules.”

To the best of my knowledge, no service rule seems to stop a government servant, including the All India Services officers, from filing PILs. It does not even say that the government servant shall take permission from the concerned Government before filing PILs. The All India Service officers are governed by the All India Services (Conduct) Rules 1968 which has a total of 23 Rules in it. None of these Rules, to the best of my knowledge, stops or prohibits any officer from moving to the Court to file PILs or service related matters.

The only bar, if at all is as regards v
indication of acts and character of members of the Service as stated in Rule 17 of these Rules which says-“No member of the Service shall, except with the previous sanction of the Government have recourse to any court or to the press for the vindication of official act which has been the subject matter of adverse criticism or attack of a defamatory character.”

Thus the Conduct Rules only prohibit going to Court for vindication of official acts.
Interestingly, here again, there is an exception which says-“ Explanation.—Nothing in this rule shall be deemed to prohibit a member of the Service from vindicating his private character or any act done by him in his private capacity provided that he shall submit a report to the Government regarding such action.”

What it seems to mean is that the officers don’t need even this previous sanction to vindicate their private character or private act.

Yet, a responsible newspaper like The Sunday Guardian came on record to state that regular filing of PILs by an IPS officer is against Service Rules, which to me seems to be an incorrect statement, being detrimental to me as well.

Hence, I would kindly request you to look into the matter, verify the facts stated by me and publish an appropriate corrigendum in case the facts presented by me seem to be based on logic and facts.

Lt No- AT/TSG/01
Dated- 07/07/2013                                                                                                       Regards,
                                                                                                                                                                                Yours,

                                                                                                                                                                (Amitabh Thakur)
                                                                                                                                                                5/426, Viram Khand,
                                                                                                                                                                Gomti Nagar, Lucknow
                                                                                                                                                                # 094155-34526
                                                                                                                                                 amitabhth@yahoo.com

No comments:

Post a Comment