Shah Faesal was detained under the stringent Public Safety Act soon after the abrogation of the special status of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Kashmiri IAS officer Shah Faesal has been reinstated in service, three years after he resigned from the bureaucracy, Union Home Ministry officials said on Thursday.
Officials told The Indian Express that Faisal’s resignation was never accepted by the government and confirmed his reinstatement in service.
Faesal, who submitted his resignation in January 2019 and formed the Jammu and Kashmir People’s Movement (JKPM) party, was detained under the stringent Public Safety Act soon after the revocation of the special status of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.
However, after his release, Faesal left politics and began to give indications of his desire to rejoin government service. His resignation was not accepted. A doctor-turned-bureaucrat, he formed his own party to “revitalize democratic politics” in Jammu and Kashmir, but his political career came to an abrupt end.
In an earlier interview, 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 action had discouraged many civil service aspirants and my colleagues felt betrayed. It bothered me a lot.”
Home ministry officials said Faesal’s plea to withdraw his resignation has been accepted and his next posting 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 after receiving reports from all quarters apart from the Department of Personnel and Training, the department that looks after the IAS, it was decided to accept his plea and later reinstated earlier this month.
Hailing from the remote village of Lolab in north Kashmir, whose father was killed by terrorists in 2002, Faisal had topped the UPSC exam in 2009.
He was detained at Delhi airport on the intervening night of 14-15 August, 2019 and sent back to Srinagar and kept in custody. He was booked under the Public Safety Act in February 2020 which was revoked after four months.
Faesal, who was the first UPSC topper from Jammu and Kashmir, had on Wednesday indicated his return to government service. In a series of tweets, he talked about his idealism in 2019, when he resigned from government service to join politics.
“8 months of my life (January 2019-August 2019) made so much stuff that I was almost exhausted. Chasing a fantasy, I lost almost everything that I had built up over the years. Work. Friend. reputation. public goodwill. But I never lost hope. My idealism had let me down,” he said.
“But I believed in myself. That I would undo the mistakes I made. That life would give me another chance. A part of me is tired of the memory of those 8 months and wants to erase that legacy. A lot of it.” Is gone. Rest in faith will wipe out time,” he said.
Although Faesal did not specify what he meant by “one more chance”, speculations have been rife here for the past one year that he will be serving government service as an IAS officer or in some advisory role to the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu. can return to. Kashmir.
“Just the thought of sharing that life is beautiful. It’s always worth giving ourselves another chance. Failures make us stronger. And there’s a wonderful world beyond the shadows of the past. I turn 39 next month.” And I am really excited to start again,” he tweeted.