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Honey-trapped CISF constable can’t get his job back, rules Delhi HC
NEW DELHI: A CISF constable who was sacked after he was honey-trapped by a Pakistani agent on Facebook will not get his job back.
NEW DELHI: A CISF constable who was sacked after he was honey-trapped by a Pakistani agent on Facebook will not get his job back.
The Delhi high court has shut its doors on Balkar Singh who was summarily dismissed in 2011, ruling that the government was well within its powers to sack him without holding a formal inquiry.
Singh had moved the high court asking for a regular departmental inquiry following due process in the manner prescribed in CISF rules.
The central industrial security force (CISF) had argued that a formal inquiry would require Pakistan’s undercover agent to be a witness in the proceedings which was not feasible.
In November 2011, the CISF was informed by an Indian intelligence agency that Singh was in contact with a Pakistani agent named Tanzeela Mazeed through Facebook and was exchanging information through ‘draft mode’ by creating an exclusive Gmail id.
When Singh was called to the CISF headquarters, he confessed to having given the bank account number and certain information regarding CISF units in Rajasthan. The CISF also said he gave his house address, bank account number, the names of his colleagues and his cell number.
Singh’s bosses insisted that his conversations with the Pakistani woman about CISF were “highly inappropriate”. He had given out information that could not be out of “innocence or ignorance”.
Singh, who was part of the 140 member UN Peacekeeping Mission at Haiti in 2010, contended that he had joined Facebook and befriended the woman after finding that many of his senior officers and colleagues were also on her friend list.
He urged that his case should be decided after perusing the details of the information exchanged.
For this, he argued that even if the Pakistani woman could not be called in for the proceedings, the information shared could be procured from Facebook.
A bench of justice Indira Banerjee and j ustice V Kameswar Rao, however, noted Singh’s Facebook chat with a hostile foreign nation agent was detrimental to the security interest of the organisation.
The court also concurred with the CISF’s contention that obtaining the details of chats from Facebook was not sustainable as the company is based abroad.
