J&K admin gags staff from criticising it in social media

◗ THE JAMMU and Kashmir government has warned their government employees of ‘disciplinary action’ for non-compliance of the guidelines

The Jammu and Kashmir government has issued fresh guidelines to its over half a million employees barring them from criticising its action and policies in the social media. It has warned them of “disciplinary action” for noncompliance of the guidelines.

As per these guidelines, “no government employee shall, through any post, tweet or otherwise, discuss or criticise on social media, any policy pursued or action taken by the government, nor shall he or she, in any manner, participate in any such discussion or criticism on social media pages, communities or microblogs”.

A circular issued in winter capital Jammu says, “No Government employee shall post, tweet or share content that is political or anti-secular and communal in nature or subscribe to pages, communities or twitter handles and blogs of such nature.”

It states that no government employee “shall himself or herself or through any person dependent on him or her for maintenance, or under his care or control, undertake any such activity on social media which is, or tends directly or indirectly to be, subversive of the government as by law established in the country on in the Union Territory”.

However, the circular seeks to clarify that the guidelines are not intended to dissuade employees or departments from using social media for “positive and constructive purposes”.

It says, “A government employee may, for the purpose of removing misapprehensions, correcting mis-statements, and refuting disloyal and seditious propaganda, defend and explain to the public the policy of government in his posts and tweets on social media”. But a government employee has been barred from posting on social media “any such content or comments about co-workers or individuals that are vulgar, obscene, threatening, intimidating or that violate the conduct rules or employees.”