Shah Faesal reinstated in service: The government has accepted the application of withdrawal of resignation of IAS officer Shah Faesal and reinstated him in service and his next appointment will be announced soon. Home Ministry officials gave this information here on Thursday. Faesal, who floated the Jammu and Kashmir People’s Movement (JKPM) party by submitting his resignation in January 2019, was detained under the stringent Public Safety Act soon after the abrogation of the special status of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. However, after his release, Faesal left politics and started giving indications of his desire to rejoin government service.
Doctor-turned-bureaucrat Faisal floated his own party to “revive democratic politics” in Jammu and Kashmir, but his political career came to an abrupt end. In an earlier interview with PTI, Faesal had said, “Soon after leaving (IAS), I realized that my spontaneous act of discontent was being viewed as an act of sedition. It did more harm than good and my work discouraged many civil service participants and my colleagues felt cheated. It bothered me a lot.”
Home ministry officials said Faesal’s request to withdraw his resignation has been accepted and his next appointment will be announced soon. The Ministry of Home Affairs, which is the cadre controlling authority for the Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and Union Territories (AGMUT) cadre, had sought the opinion of the Jammu and Kashmir administration regarding his plea to withdraw his resignation. Officials said that after receiving reports from all over the place except the Department of Personnel and Training which looks after the IAS, it was decided to accept his request and later he was reinstated earlier this month.
In a series of tweets, he talked about his idealism in 2019, when he resigned from government service to join politics. He said, “8 months of my life (Jan 2019-Aug 2019) created so much baggage that I was almost finished.
While chasing a chimera, I lost almost everything that I had built over the years. Job. Friends. Reputation. Public goodwill. But I never lost hope. My idealism had let me down.”
He said, “But I had faith in myself. That I would undo the mistakes I had made.
That life would give me another chance. A part of me is exhausted with the memory of those 8 months and wants to erase that legacy. Much of it is already gone. Time will mop off the rest In believe.”
Faisal’s father, a resident of the remote village of Lolab in North Kashmir, was killed by terrorists in 2002. Faesal had topped the UPSC exam in 2009. He was detained at the Delhi airport on the intervening night of August 14-15, 2019 and sent back to Srinagar where he was kept in custody. The Public Safety Act was imposed on him in February 2020 which was repealed after four months. Faesal, who was the first Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) topper from Jammu and Kashmir, had on Wednesday indicated his return to government service.