Patna: The Nitish Kumar government in Bihar has courted yet another controversy, with Director General of Police S.K. Singhal issuing a circular Monday warning that those chargesheeted by the police for involvement in a ‘criminal act’ through participation in protests will not get government jobs or contracts.
The circular has drawn sharp reactions from opposition parties. The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav has called the circular North Korean dictator “Kim Jong-un’s farman (diktat)”.
“Nitish Kumar is posing a challenge to Hitler and Mussolini,” the opposition leader said. “By this rule, any person using his democratic right to protest against the government will not be given a government job.”
RJD vice-president Shivanand Tiwari said he was surprised that the Nitish Kumar government was issuing such circulars.
“I am surprised that the Nitish Kumar government is issuing such orders. He is a product of the JP (Narayan) agitation and was lathi-charged for participating in the agitation. He was even jailed,” Tiwari said. “Now the same Nitish Kumar is creating hurdles for protests. He has been in power for so long that he does not want to listen to criticism.”
Acting on the direction of additional chief secretary Amir Subhani, DGP S.K. Singhal issued the controversial circular on 1 February.
“If any person is involved in any criminal act by participating in any law and order situation, protest demonstrations, road jams etc and the police filed a charge sheet in that, it should be included prominently and clearly in the police verification report,” the circular reads. “Such persons will have to be ready for serious consequences because they will not get government jobs/contracts.”
The police verification process for government jobs, government contracts and passports is not new. But Additional Chief Secretary Amir Subhani recently sent a letter to government officials asking them to enforce the process more rigorously. “Even when a person files the tender for a government contract and does not submit a character certificate, ask them for the certificate,” Subhani’s letter reads.
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A case of overreach, say former civil servants
Retired officials both in the police and the civil administration told ThePrint that the circular was an overreach.
“The DGP was within his rights to issue orders to his subordinates to mention the cases prominently in the police verification reports but he was not entitled to issue a threat about government jobs,” a former DGP told ThePrint. “Government jobs do not fall under his jurisdiction.”
Another former DGP, Abhyanand, said if anyone participated in a protest and there were no untoward incidents, there would be no case.
“But suppose violence takes place and an FIR is lodged naming some persons, it will be followed by a charge sheet,” he said. “The cases against the person will be mentioned whenever police verification takes place.”
Speaking to ThePrint, former Bihar chief secretary V.S. Dubey said: “The language used about holding protests is intimidating and threatening. It could have been avoided.”
A former IAS officer too said it was “like a veiled threat”, and that the act is one of an insecure government.
Nitish’s JD(U) has, however, defended the circular. “Those who organise peaceful protests have nothing to worry about. The letter is meant for persons who indulge in violence and arson in the name of carrying out a democraic protest,” party spokerson Rajiv Ranjan Prasad said.
The BJP too echoed his views. “Nobody has the right to take law and order in their own hands. There is nothing new in this order,” BJP spokesperson Prem Ranjan Patel said.
This, however, isn’t the first time that the government has issued such a circular. It had on 22 January decided to bring defamatory and offensive social social media posts against ministers, MPs, MLAs, the administration and its officials under the purview of cybercrime.
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