Senior clerk in railways pulled up for not agreeing to sing with boss Woman says no to duet, put on notice

that read: “When the General Manager/SECR (Satyendra Kumar) expressed his desire to sing one particular song. Smt. Anjali Tiwari flatly refused to sing the duet under the pretext that she has not prepared”.

The notice further castigates Ms Tiwari and said: “Being an employee appointed under cultural quota, she (Ms Tiwari) is not supposed to refuse to perform when instructions in advance were given to her by the undersigned. She thus committed gross misconduct and failed to maintain absolute devotion towards duty”.

When contacted, Mr Gautam said the issue was not her refusal but the timing. “We had given her a list of three duet songs that the GM likes a day before the event.

The event was delayed around 10 pm on January 16.”

He further added, “At first Ms Tiwari sang one duet with the GM but when she was asked to sing the other songs she flatly refused, that too on the stage. We felt this could have been avoided at a time when everyone was in a good mood. In fact the general manager let the issue go.”

The memo was revoked after an uproar on Twitter and Facebook. The bizarre decision came from the South East Central Railway (SECR), Raipur division.

The incident occurred on January 16 when Ms Tiwari allegedly said that she cannot sing a song originally sung by Lata Mangeshwar and the late Mohhamad Rafi, a favourite of Mr Kumar since she had not practiced it enough.

This newspaper has a copy of the notice (aka chargesheet) that was issued to Ms Tiwari. Mr Gautam said that an inquiry has been initiated into the situation and the results will come soon. Observing that there is nothing in law to bar Centre from presenting the Union Budget on February 1, the Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a PIL challenging the Centre’s decision to advance the Budget from February 28 to February 1.

A three-judge bench of Chief Justice J.S. Khehar and Justices N.V. Ramana and D.Y. Chandrachud rejected arguments of petitioneradvocate M.L. Sharma that presentation of the Budget on February 1 will influence the voters in the five States going to polls.

The Bench observed, “Your argument that the Budget should be presented only in April after the commencement of the financial year is absurd. The government needs finance to run the government from April 1.”

The CJI told counsel, “There is no valid argument to corroborate how advancing the Budget will influence voters. We gave you enough time but you are not able to show us any provision of law which bars advancing the date of budget. Going by your argument next you will say that party in power at the Centre should not contest polls.”

The petitioner said the Election Commission on January 4 had announced elections in five states between February 4 and March 8 for Goa, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Manipur and UP. Counting would take place on March 11.

The petitioner said with the formal announcement of the dates, the Model Code of Conduct comes into force and no policy announcements should be made.