Shah Faesal rejoins government service, says life has given him ‘another chance’

He resigned in 2019, and was detained for over a year after Article 370 was removed

Shah Faesal was the first UPSC topper from Jammu and Kashmir, but had resigned from the service in January 2019. File | Photo Credit: Reuters

Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Shah Faesal, who resigned in 2019 and was detained for over a year after Article 370 of the Constitution ceased to operate in Jammu and Kashmir, has been reinstated by the Union Government.

Mr. Faesal, who had founded the J&K People’s Movement (JKPM), a political party in March 2019, had moved a petition in the Supreme Court against the government’s decision on Article 370, which is pending.

Mr. Faesal, a topper of the 2010 UPSC examination, was detained at the Delhi airport on August 14, 2019 when he was on his way to the U.S.

The detention was made after the Parliament on August 5, 2019 passed two legislation to read down Article 370 of the Constitution in Jammu and Kashmir and downgrade and bifurcate the State into two Union Territories. Hundreds of political leaders were placed under detention for almost a year. Jammu and Kashmir has been under the Central rule since June 2018.

A senior government official confirmed that Mr. Faesal has been reinstated into the IAS. He, however, awaits posting. A Jammu and Kashmir cadre IAS officer, Mr. Faesal will now be serving the Union Territory or AGMUT cadre, under the direct control of the Ministry of Home Affairs.

‘My idealism let me down’

On Wednesday, Mr. Faesal posted a series of tweets, saying he was ready to start all over again and that his idealism let him down.

“8 months of my life (Jan 2019-Aug 2019) created so much baggage that I was almost finished.  While chasing a chimera, I lost almost everything that I had built over the years. Job. Friends. Reputation. Public goodwill. But I never lost hope. My idealism had let me down,” one of his tweets said.

He added, “But I had faith in myself. That I would undo the mistakes I had made. That life would give me another chance. A part of me is exhausted with the memory of those 8 months and wants to erase that legacy. Much of it is already gone. Time will mop off the rest I believe.”

Mr. Faesal said that “life is beautiful. It is always worth giving ourselves another chance. Setbacks make us stronger. And there is an amazing world beyond the shadows of the past. I turn 39 next month. And I’m really excited to start all over again.”

He resigned from the IAS in 2019 but it was not accepted by the government which initiated disciplinary proceedings against him instead for some of the tweets posted in 2018.

He was released from detention on June 3, 2020 and continued to remain under house arrest. Soon after his release from an MLA hostel in Srinagar, he dropped all references to the JKPM party from his Twitter handle and deleted all old posts from his timeline.