‘Govt Won’t Accept Resignation, Wants to Dismiss Me’: K Gopinathan

Kannan Gopinathan

(Photo altered by The Quint)

Kannan Gopinathan, the IAS officer who resigned in protest against the abrogation of Article 370, has said that the government has not accepted his resignation because it wants to dismiss him.

“I think they want to dismiss me. They don’t want to allow me the tag that I resigned from the service... which is fine, I think. That’s childish behaviour from the government,” he told India Today.

Gopinathan also said a memorandum has been served to him for speaking against the BJP government on Kashmir issue, which claims he brought a bad reputation to the country.

‘People Have Understood the Danger of CAA-NRC’

Kannan claimed that people have understood the danger of CAA, NRC and NPR. He added that the government wants people to be just afraid enough to remain indoors, not so scared that they come out on roads.

“Amit Shah wanted people to understand the chronology, now that people have understood, and now the government is saying to forget about the chronology. People have understood the danger.”

Kannan Gopinathan

“You have decided to follow a path of instilling fear in the people, dividing the people, spreading hatred. Now, its for the people to react to that," he told India Today.

Referencing the right to equality, he also questioned the constitutional validity of the “explicitly discriminatory” citizenship law.

“Why those three countries? The first question is that, Article 14 says... protection of law and equality before the law. Why those three countries, why those six communities?” he said.

Gopinathan, a 2012 batch AGMUT cadre Indian Administrative Service officer, was the secretary, Power Department of the Union Territories of Daman and Diu, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli when he resigned on 21 August last year.

He was released by the Uttar Pradesh police on Saturday, 4 January, after being detained at the state border while he was on his way to speak at an event hosted by Aligarh Muslim University.

(With inputs from India Today and Deccan Herald)