New Delhi: Kannan Gopinathan, a 2012-batch IAS officer hailing from Kerala submitted his resignation to the Dadra and Nagar Haveli administration on Wednesday. Kannan held the post of secretary of key departments like power and non-conventional energy sources in the administration.
He came into the limelight for his anonymous participation in the flood relief efforts in Kerala last year.
The office sent his resignation to the Union Home Secretary on August 21, news agency reported. Gopinathan who joined the service in 2012, said that he has taken the decision because he wants his freedom of expression back.
"Over the past few days, I have been really perturbed by what is happening in the country, wherein a large section of our population have had their fundamental rights suspended. There has been a lack of response to it. We seem to be perfectly fine with it. I also see in some small ways how I am also a part of it. I think if I had a newspaper, the only thing I would be printing on the front page would be '19' on the front page, because today is the nineteenth day," he says. He hinted at how there has been no response even from within the service to the detaining of former civil servant Shah Faesal, who was the first Kashmiri to secure first in the civil services examination. "We got into the service thinking that we can provide voice to people, but then we ended up with our own voice being taken away from us," he said.