IAS officer Shah Faesal reinstated, posted as deputy secretary in Tourism Ministry

The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) in its order issued two days ago appointed Faesal in the Union Tourism Ministry

TN National Desk

Updated Aug 13, 2022, 12:55 IST

IAS officer Shah Faesal

New Delhi: The Centre has posted IAS officer Shah Faesal as Deputy Secretary in the Tourism Ministry. The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) in its order issued two days ago appointed Faesal in the Union Tourism Ministry, a senior DoPT official told ANI. He was reinstated earlier this year.

Faesal, an IAS officer from Jammu and Kashmir, had resigned from the service on 9 January 2019. He floated his own political party called Jammu and Kashmir People's Movement (JKPM). In the same year, the Centre scrapped the special status accorded to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370. He was arrested under the stringent Public Safety Act (PSA).

The next year, Faesal quit politics and expressed the desire to return to the civil service. In an interview with PTI, Faesal had once said that soon after quitting IAS, he realised that his "innocuous act of dissent was being seen as an act of treason". "It had done more harm than benefit and my act had discouraged a lot of civil services aspirants and my colleagues felt betrayed. It upset me a lot," he said to the news agency.

In a series of tweets, Faesal in April this year said that his idealism had let him down in 2019. "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," he said.

In another tweet, he said it was 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 said.

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