Owaisi slams BJP gag order on ex-officials

Pension rule changes of civil servants questioned

AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi has criticised the Modi government over amendments made in the pension rules for civil service officials, under which they are prohibited, after retirement, from publishing information relating to intelligence or security related matters without advance clearance from the government.

Owaisi noted that Intelligence personnel are already bound by such a restriction for their entire life by way of signing of a declaration under the Official Secrets Act when they joined the service. “What is new is the rule to withhold their pension.” This, he said, was because the government was unable to use the OSA, given its “near non-existent prosecution skills.”

He said such politically loaded tactics now defined the Modi Government. “Threaten one, threaten some, deter all.”

Intelligence professionals are the easiest to pick on, given that they largely live a life of invisibility during and after service, Owaisi said. Owaisi asked whether the government has the guts to ban the most-prolific post-retirement “writers”, civil servants, and those in the armed forces and the judiciary, all of whom accessed national secrets and secret documents during their work.

“Are intelligence officials special just because they do the dirty work bordering on criminality for you,” he asked the PM.

The MIM leader asked, “Will you now stop the pension of RVS Mani, who was handling intelligence files in the Ministry of Home Affairs for writing the book, ‘The Myth of Hindu Terror: Insider account of the Ministry of Home Affairs 2006-2010’.”

“WHAT IS new is the rule to withhold their pension.” This, he said, was because the government was unable to use the OSA, given its “near non-existent prosecution skills.”