HC upholds CISF man's sacking for sharing info with Pak agent

The Delhi High Court has upheld the sacking of a CISF personnel for sharing information on social networking site about various units with a woman of a "hostile foreign country", saying divulging such inputs through chat with an undercover agent was detrimental to national security.
The court's observation came while rejecting a plea of a CISF constable, who was dismissed from service in 2011 after he was found involved in chatting on Facebook with a woman, who as per intelligence report was working as an undercover agent of Pakistan.
"..From perusal of the aforesaid reasoning and noting the allegation against the petitioner of divulging information with regard to CISF units and his colleagues, is surely an aspect, which is detrimental to security interest of the organisation, more so, when the person to which the information has been divulged is an undercover agent of a hostile foreign country..," a bench of justices Indira Banerjee and V Kameswar Rao said.

Petitioner Balkar Singh, who was appointed as a constable in CISF in June 2000, has moved the high court challenging the December 7, 2011 order dismissing him from service.
In his plea, Singh said that while working at NTPC unit, Simhadri, he was directed to proceed on temporary duty to CISF headquarters in New Delhi on October 24, 2011.
He said that at the CISF headquarters, he was asked about his Facebook account and he told the senior officials that he had not disclosed any kind of information to anyone.

The petitioner said that after returning to his unit, he received an order of December 7, 2011 which said he was being dismissed from service since he was involved in chatting on Facebook with one Tanzeela Mazeed, who was working as an undercover agent, and had allegedly exchanged information with her.

Singh, while denying the allegation levelled against him, said he was told that it was not possible to hold a regular departmental inquiry against him.
Singh claimed he had befriended Mazeed on Facebook after checking that many of his superior officers and colleagues were also on her friend list but later stopped communicating with her and immediately deleted his Facebook account.
The Centre's counsel claimed that when Singh was called
to CISF headquarters on October 24, 2011, he confessed to having given bank account number and certain information regarding CISF units in Rajasthan and his e-mail address to Mazeed.
However, Singh's counsel said dismissing his client after 11 years of outstanding service on this ground was "clearly untenable" as he had not shared any information with Mazeed.

The court, while dismissing his plea, said the view taken by the authorities in the order was "justified" as even if a departmental inquiry was held, the charges against him cannot be proved in the absence of a crucial witness.
"There was material in the form of a statement of the petitioner himself and the information given by the sister intelligence agency and on analysing the same, if the competent authority concludes that in the scenario, it is not possible to hold an inquiry, this court is of the view that the same cannot be faulted," it said.