Employees federation officials show caused for 'derogatory' remarks against HP govt

Shimla: The Himachal Pradesh government on Wednesday issued show cause notices to office bearers of the Federation of Secretarial Employees Unions for allegedly making derogatory remarks against the government and its policies during a meeting last week.

Himachal Pradesh Secretariat employees had threatened to intensify their protest over the non-release of their arrears of revised pay scales and dearness allowance (DA) and held two general house meetings in the past week.

The memo said that it has come to the notice of the government through internal platforms and media reports that during the union meeting, the office bearers used "derogatory" remarks against the working of the government and also used "objectionable" language and instigated other employees.

They also criticised policy decisions which is a violation of the conduct rules, it said.

The notice asked why departmental action should not be initiated against them under conduct rules and sought a reply within 15 days failing which it will be assumed that they have nothing to say.

"This act is unwarranted and highly unbecoming of a government servant and tantamount to misconduct, misbehaviour and violation of conduct rules," the notice said.

Talking to the PTI on Wednesday, the Federation president, Sanjeev Sharma, said it was an unprecedented action.

"I have been served notice along with some other Union members. We have been expecting that the government would resort to such tactics to harass us.

"This is unprecedented, till date, never a memo has been issued for a gate meeting and we had taken prior permission to hold the gate meeting", he said.

Sharma and other leaders who have been served notices had addressed the employees during the "gate meeting" held on August 21 and 23. They had alleged that the state government has funds for furnishing the offices of ministers and officers and the construction of new offices but it has no money to pay its employees.

"About Rs 50 lakh has been spent on furnishing offices of two ministers while administrative approval of about Rs 19 crore has been approved for construction of the office of the chief minister," they had claimed.

Sharma had said that the employees would work wearing black badges and the fight for their demands would continue unabated.