"Due to Cachar administration's irresponsible negligence, my 27 years of service got insulted," Indrani Goswami, DDIPR

When the media walked out of the chief minister’s event recently boycotting the briefing, it was clear that heads will roll. After all, the matter was related to the highest chair in the state. Indrani Goswami, deputy director, Directorate of Information & Public Relations, Barak Valley region got suspended. But was she made the scapegoat? Was she held accountable for a collective failure?

Goswami was suspended by the competent authority stating she was absent from her duties without obtaining prior permission. “For which serious mismanagement took place regarding media persons who came to cover the program of Honorable Chief Minister Assam. As a result, a number of media people got agitated and left the venue causing much embarrassment to the government,” stated the letter.

“I was on leave!” says Indrani Goswami. “How can they say that I did not obtain permission from the competent authority when my leave was granted by former deputy commissioner of Cachar Barnali Sharma,” she argues.

She was placed under suspension on June 15, 2020, ten days after chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal visited Silchar to review the landslide situation which killed 21 individuals in Barak Valley. The press contingent consisting of reporters from print, TV, and digital platforms was kept waiting in dark for more than six hours. The Directorate of Information & Public Relations’s Barak Valley office invited the press for a briefing at 12:30 PM. Nothing happened till 7:00 and no one even bothered to communicate about the delay. That is what irked the press and they walked out of the CM’s event raising slogans.

“Whatever happened, it was unfortunate but to held me responsible for that is both unfair and unjust,” says Goswami. She informs that, after checking her medical reports which state her blood sugar (Random) was alarmingly high at 766.3 mg/dl she was asked to travel to Guwahati for better treatment by the joint director of health services, Cachar district.

“Following the diagnosis, I applied for leave on the medical ground which was granted by the then DC Barnali Sharma. Not only did she grant my leave, but she also asked ADC Sumit Sattavan to write to the SP of Cachar and arrange for a pass for me to travel to Guwahati during the lockdown,” Goswami adds.

On April 13, 2020, when the state was under a blanket lockdown, ADC Sumit Sattavan, wrote to the superintendent of Police, Cachar asking him to issue a pass which would allow Goswami to reach Guwahati via Meghalaya another state that had sealed its border to avoid vehicular traffic during the lockdown imposed to restrict the outbreak of Coronavirus.

A copy of the letter as sourced by Barak Bulletin  

The suspension came in as a shock for Goswami, “How can you suspend someone who is on leave and moreover, what surprised and saddened me more is the fact that nobody including my director, bothered to speak with me for even once before placing me under suspension,” she adds.

After she was suspended, she reached out to senior officials and found out that her application for leave and other documents never reached the headquarters. “The government wasn’t even aware that I was on leave. Due to Cachar administration’s irresponsible negligence, my 27 years of service got insulted. They did not even send my documents to Guwahati,” adds Goswami.

The Cachar administration not sending the documents to district headquarters is not the only thing that surprises her. “I went on leave mid-April, CM visited Silchar on June 4, why did the Cachar administration or DIPR not appoint a deputy director – in charge. Only after the fiasco took place they realised that they need someone,” Goswami sheds light on the lackluster attitude.

She has already submitted all the documents to substantiate the fact that her absence was not without obtaining permission. For now, she is waiting for the suspension order to be canceled and till then she will remain in Guwahati. Her leave, she says was granted till June 15. Following which she was supposed to resume service. However, considering her deteriorating health condition, on June 8, a week before she was placed under suspension, she had put in a request for voluntary retirement from service.

“After all this that has happened, I am not sure if I will return to Cachar at all. If I was an irresponsible, ignorant, negligent employee I could have easily used my leaves and remained in office for the seven years left in my service. I decided to go on retirement voluntarily as I was not able to serve the state in the best of my ability…” adds Goswami who is suffering from diabetes.

Retirement or not, she said if the suspension is not canceled, she will go to court and file a lawsuit. She also added that the state headquarters have asked Cachar administration for her file, “but that apparently is missing,” asserts Goswami. Adding, “It is none of my business how and where the file is. My responsibility ended when Barnali Sharma granted me the leave. Thank god, I have all the documents with me, which I carried along only because I was traveling during the lockdown.”

Now, will the state government cancel Indrani Goswami’s suspension, why did the Cachar administration not send Goswami’s documents to state headquarters, why did no one bothered to put someone in charge of a position as high as the deputy director, Directorate of Information & Public Relations, especially when the world is in the middle of a pandemic and there are tonnes of communication, there are many questions left with loose ends…

“Keerthi Jalli who took over as the DC of Cachar early May did not issue a show-cause notice to me, which proves, she knows I am on leave… My director called me so many times to check on my health, he knew I was unwell. MP Silchar, Rajdeep Roy said during a press conference that I am unwell, so, he knew too. Yet, I get suspended, maybe it is a conspiracy against me,” concludes Goswami.