J&Ok govt workers barred from publishing, sharing political or anti-secular content material, or criticising govt insurance policies

On Friday, the federal government of Jammu and Kashmir issued a particular notification barring all the federal government workers of the Union Territory from criticizing the federal government or partaking in any dialogue in opposition to the federal government over social media. The authorities said that no such dialogue or criticism shall be performed by authorities workers on social media pages, communities or microblogs.

According to the notification, any govt worker who would violate the instructions shall be charged with the Information Technology Act, The Jammu and Kashmir Government Employees (Conduct) Rules, 1971 and the Jammu and Kashmir Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) guidelines, 1956.

J&Ok Govt points tips relating to the usage of social media by the Govt Employees of UT of J&Ok

No Govt worker shall, by way of any publish, tweet or in any other case, talk about or criticize on social media, any coverage pursued or motion taken by the Govt, nor shall he/she, in any method,… pic.twitter.com/Mzt1OvxR6x

— ANI (@ANI) March 24, 2023

The route additional asks the federal government workers to cease posting or sharing any content material that’s political or anti-secular and communal in nature. It additionally asks them to not comply with or subscribe to pages, communities, Twitter handles and blogs that share or publish political or anti-secular content material.

“No government employee shall publish in his name or any other person’s name an opinion that might create embarrassment between the Government of Jammu and Kashmir, Government of India or Government of any other state. No opinion shall be criticism of any policy or action of the state or national government,” the notification reads.

It provides that any authorities worker discovered posting unlawful content material on social media shall be liable to imprisonment for a time period which can prolong to 3 years with nice beneath the IT Act. Also, the worker might face the chance of pre-mature retirement or decrease increments or demotion to decrease publish beneath the Jammu and Kashmir Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) guidelines, 1956.

As per the official assertion, the notification applies to all the federal government workers of the UT utilizing any social media platform like Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter, Telegram or some other Instant messaging utility.