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Can’t threaten staffers with intimidating orders: PDP to J&K admn
J&K government has said in its order that employees can neither discuss nor criticise any government policy or action on social media or blogs
A day after the J&K administration issued an order governing employees on using social media platforms, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Saturday said “threatening staffers through intimidating orders is not only unfortunate, but also unacceptable”.
J&K government has said in its order that employees can neither discuss nor criticise any government policy or action on social media or blogs.
It has asked deputy commissioners and heads of various departments to take disciplinary action against defaulting employees.
“Whether it was blacklisting contractors & the social media gag to employees, a clear intimidation of dispossessing people in J&K of their livelihood has emerged. Authorities have become judge, jury & executioner in complete violation of the fundamental rights of people(sic),” PDP president Mehbooba Mufti tweeted.
CPI (M) general secretary MY Tarigami also said that employees must be treated as citizens and not subjects.
“Being a govt employee doesn’t mean one giving up all legitimate constitutional rights as a citizen. Barring them from expressing their views about the issues concerning them is tantamount to stripping them of their basic rights. They must be treated as citizens, not as subjects,” Tarigami tweeted.
Former trade union leader and PDP’s additional spokesperson Mohammad Rafique Rather called it the snatching of the basic human rights of employees.
“It is already there in CSR that the government employees can’t criticise the policies of the government. However, issuance of this new order is contriving towards a very hostile circumstance which can attain further volatility if the order isn’t backtracked and the role of trade unions isn’t described,” said Rather.
