Tehsildars call off protest after govt cracks the whip

The tehsildars in Punjab called off their protest unconditionally after the state government acted tough against them. They had launched the protest on Monday against the state Vigilance Bureau for booking some of their colleagues on corruption charges.

The protest has been called off in the “larger interest of the state, as a law and order situation has arisen because of the farmers protest across Punjab”, Lachman Singh, officiating president of the Punjab Revenue Officers Association told his colleagues. Later, an undated letter was issued, asking them to join their duty.

With many PCS officers entrusted with the work related to registries in all 181 tehsils yesterday, many deputy commissioners and senior officers in the government convinced the tehsildars to restart registry work and also act as duty magistrates in view of the state-wide protests by farmers. In the evening, they acceded to the demands.

“We did not allow work to suffer in tehsil offices. Today itself, 2,113 registries were done across Punjab, by the officers deputed by deputy commissioners,” Additional Chief Secretary (Revenue) Anurag Verma told The Tribune.

The decision to call off the protest was taken soon after the government toughened its stand further and ordered mass transfers of naib tehsildars and tehsildars.

ACS (Revenue) Anurag Verma issued orders to transfer 117 naib tehsildars and 58 tehsildars this morning. Yesterday, 15 tehsildars were placed under suspension, including the acting president of the association. They were also issued a warning letter by Verma, asking them to join duty immediately.

These revenue officers had gone on a mass casual leave on Monday, and from yesterday onwards, they had decided to attend office, but abstain from undertaking registration of sale deeds.

CM Bhagwant Mann, showing a steely resolve, warned the tehsildars against protests in favour of their “corrupt colleagues”. He also directed the DCs in all districts to allocate work of registries to PCS officers and kanungos to ensure that public is not inconvenienced. He himself visited tehsil offices to oversee if the work was going on smoothly.

What went in the favour of the government was also the lack of any public support or public opinion in favour of the revenue officers, with people voicing their angst against them online and alleging that revenue offices were dens of corruption.

Though some other associations and unions of government employees initially came out in their support and decided to join them in the protest, they have also now withdrawn their call for protest.