Ten days after constituting a Special Task Force (STF) to identify and scrutinize its own 'terror friendly' employees, the Jammu and Kashmir Government, in a first, issued an order to dismiss a government teacher from service for his involvement in anti-national activities.
According to an order, "Idress Jan, a teacher in Government Middle School, Kralpora was dismissed from service under sub-clause (c) of the provision of clause (2) of Article 311 of the Constitution of India. "Lieutenant Governor is satisfied under sub-clause (c) of the proviso to clause (2) of Article 311 of the Constitution of India that in the interest of the security of the State, it is not expedient to hold an inquiry in the case Idrees Jan, Teacher, Government Middle Kralpora, Kupwara", the order reads.
STF was constituted to identify 'terror friendly' employees
On April 21, the Jammu and Kashmir government had announced the formation of a Special Task Force (STF) to identify and scrutinize government employees with links to activities that pose threat to national security.
The SFT is headed by J&K's intelligence chief R.R. Swain, who served for a decade in the Research and Analysis Wing before returning to J&K. The panel has been assigned the job to compile records of such employees and refer the same to the committee already constituted in the month of July 2020 in this regard. The panel will also engage with other members of the Terror Monitoring Group (TMG) for identifying such other employees.
"The Special Task Force shall speedily scrutinize such cases in a time-bound manner and shall be serviced by the Criminal Investigation Department", stated in the order.
The process of identifying such employees started in July 2020
Earlier on July 30, 2020, the J&K Government had constituted a panel to scrutinize and recommend cases for dismissal of government employees of their services. The panel is headed by Chief Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam to take stock of all such cases that would be referred to it by the police and home departments. This panel has already identified nearly 1000 employees who have been involved in the anti-national activities overtly or covertly. These employees are involved in anti-India hatred campaigns on different social media networking sites.
Article 311 empowers the government to dismiss an employee
Article 311 of the Constitution of India empowers the government to dismiss an employee on the basis of inquiry. However, most of the government employees' dismissal orders in the past had been quashed by courts.
In August 1990, five government officials were dismissed from service on charges of indulging in anti-national activities but later they were reinstated. Similarly in 1993, following a police revolt, over 125 policemen were dismissed from service, but later they were also reinstated.
