KNZ NEWS DESK
Srinagar: For the first time after the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution on 5 August 2019, the government in the Union Territory (UT) of Jammu and Kashmir has begun a process to terminate services of the employees involved in anti-national activities StateTimes reported.
According to some highly placed authoritative sources, 500 to 1,000 government employees, “posing threat to security and integrity of the State”, could be dismissed in the next two or three months.
On the basis of intelligence reports, Government has learned much more than the sworn separatists and terrorists, a section of its own employees was proactively promoting anti-India hatred, assailing New Delhi’s decisions of 5 August 2019, trolling and threatening politicians, government officers and businesspersons on social media-WhatsApp groups, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Besides, the decision of dispensing with the services of over 200 employees, including Police personnel in league with terrorists or charged with dereliction of duty, had remained pending for legal and technical hitches since long.
On Thursday, 30 July 2020, General Administration Department (GAD) of the Jammu and Kashmir Government decided to invoke a special provision of the Constitution of India for the purpose of terminating the services of the employees or reducing their ranks without holding an inquiry but on the basis of relevant records and other collateral evidence.
Article 311 of the Constitution empowers the government to dismiss the employees on the basis of an enquiry. However, most of the government employees’ dismissal orders in the past, when Jammu and Kashmir was a State, had been quashed by courts as the aggrieved petitioners disputed the procedure or called the inquiry as ‘flawed’. Now the UT government has invoked Clause (2)(c) of Article 311 that dispenses with the prerequisite of inquiry in the matters where the Presiden
