Railway Board wants to suppress voices of dissent ruthlessly, says Railway officer Sanjiv Kumar

The Railway Board wants to suppress new ideas and voices of dissent "ruthlessly", officer Sanjiv Kumar has said after Railway authorities sought action against him for writing an article against their minister and raising issues related to the working of the national transporter.

On Monday evening, the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi curtailed Kumar's tenure as Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to Jitendra Singh, the minister of state in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), and approved his repatriation to the Railway ministry.

The 2005-batch officer of the Indian Railway Personnel Service (IRPS) recently wrote to the Personnel ministry against the Railway ministry's "malafide and malicious" request that he be immediately repatriated.

But he was sent back notwithstanding the request.

The move came a month after the Railway ministry had written to the Personnel ministry seeking his immediate repatriation for "breach of official decorum and misconduct".

Kumar had said in his letter to the Personnel ministry that the request should not be considered.

"The act of railway board is totally bias, malafide and malicious, they just want to suppress new ideas, suggestions, voices of dissent ruthlessly and trying to score exemplary example of punishment upon me without following rule of law and due process as intent of railway board letter speak itself," he said in the letter.

He said the article, posted on his Facebook page and later shared on websites, does not cast any aspersions on the railway minister if it is examined without bias and vindictiveness.

In December last year, former Railway Board secretary Ranjanesh Sahai wrote to the Personnel ministry saying a case of breach of official decorum and misconduct against Kumar has been brought to the notice of board.

The article, besides being in bad taste, questions the wisdom of senior functionaries of the level of secretary to the government of India and also casts aspersions on the Minister of Railways (Piyush Goyal), it had said.

"...it is proposed to take up the officer under the Railway Servants (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1968. You would appreciate that a misconduct of this nature and that too in the public domain would send a wrong message all around and encourage indiscipline in the service," Sahai's letter, dated December 28, 2018, stated.

Sahai asked secretary of Personnel ministry C Chandramouli to consider Kumar's immediate repatriation to the Railway ministry for taking action as deemed appropriate.

It added that the issue had the approval of Railway Board chairman Ashwani Lohani, who has now taken over as the chief of Air India.

Sahai was last month transferred as Railway Board secretary.

Kumar has been vocal in raising concerns related to the alleged wrong functioning of some wings of the Railway ministry.