In an important decision, the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), Lucknow today dismissed the petition filed by IPS Officer Amitabh Thakur challenging the complete prohibition on the members of All India Services to criticize any recent policies or acts of the Central or State government. The bench consisting of Navneet Kumar and OPS Malik said that freedom of speech needs to have reasonable restrictions for State officers and since the IAS and IPS officers are at higher positions, the need for reasonable restrictions need to be more strict.
The order said that these restrictions are needed for discipline and orderly governance. CAT said there are thousands of IAS and IPS officers in the country and if they are allowed incoherent and irresponsible utterances, they will send confusing and conflicting signals and will damage the entire structure of government and create chaos.
Hence CAT rejected Sri Thakur’s prayer that rule 7 of the All India Services Conduct Rules 1968 which makes a blanket prohibition on any statement of fact or opinion having adverse criticism of any current or recent policy or action of the Central Government or a State Government made by these officers is too wide and vague and needs to be quashed as being against the right to freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(2)
