In perhaps the first occurrence of its kind in India, freedom of expression on social network Facebook has led to the suspension from service of two employees of the Bihar government. The punishment meted out to the two award-winning writers has sparked outrage both online and offline.
Arun Narayan and Musafir Baitha, both assistants in the department of Hindi publication in the Bihar Legislative Council, were handed suspension orders for discussing administrative red-tapism and state politics on Facebook.
The suspension order, authorised by Council chairman Tarakant Jha and dated September 16, was reportedly issued at the insistence of Bihar parliamentary affairs minister Brijendra Yadav.
Mr Yadav defended his step on Wednesday, saying he had performed the expected “rajdharm” because the two employees had “violated service rules”.
But contrary to established norms, no show-cause notice was served on the duo for their alleged misconduct of making “unparliamentarily remarks against the government” and they were summarily placed under suspension.
Mr Narayan, whose historical treatise on Bihar’s journalism trends entitled Dastaan-e-Zindagi won the state’s best manuscript award last year, was accused of initiating a critical discussion on Facebook about the recent termination of rebel JD(U) leader and writer Prem Kumar Mani’s membership of the Upper House.
Mr Narayan is known for his book reviews and analytical writing.
Mr Baitha, a well-known dalit writer who earlier won Bihar’s best emerging writer, was accused of initiating a discussion on Facebook about how administrative lethargy in the Council had caused suffering to employees.
His application for a loan against his GPF hung fire, causing him distress, because his office had allegedly not updated his GPF records for eight of his 12 years of service.