A border guards commander has issued a show cause notice to his juniors threatening them with transfers and downgrading of service records for letting a regimental event held at the SSB camp in Gorakhpur turn into a "children's park".
The memorandum issued by the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of the Recruit Training Centre of the SSB, P S Chundawat, has not gone down well with the junior officers and staff as they questioned the very logic of the notice.
The event, on which the DIG took umbrage, was held on March 9 at the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) RTC in the Indo-Nepal border town of Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh.
The show cause issued by the DIG, also the head of the institution, showcauses the juniors asking: "Why your Annual Performance Appraisal Report (APAR) for the year 2016-17 should not be downgraded?" and "Why you should not be transferred to other units?"
"...There was no control over the children by their parents due to which the whole auditorium (where the event was held) was converted into a children's park. This act shows lack of command and control of parents on their children whereas all were advised in verbal and written at the time of other regimental functions to avoid such type of indiscipline acts in future," the show cause notice, accessed by PTI, said.
It added that "neither the staff has taken the directions seriously nor followed duties of a citizen which is a clear cut example of casual attitude towards the decorum of force."
When contacted by PTI, Chundawat said "he issued the show cause to threaten his juniors and mend their children and if they do not heed to discipline, he will go ahead and take the action next time as threatened in the notice."
"Have I taken the action? I issued it so that next time such a thing does not take place. You will not tell me how to run the force...I know the procedure...What could anyone do when 12 CRPF men were killed recently. There is nothing wrong in what I have done...I will reply to my seniors," he said.
A senior SSB officer, on the condition of anonymity, questioned the show cause notice saying such "such minor issues are not dealt by issuing memorandums which threaten a strong action like downgrading of appraisal reports or transfers which are very harsh punishments usually handed down for gross indiscipline like incidents."
"Some of the officers are planning to write to the force headquarters in Delhi seeking a remedy. Such irrational actions lead to the harassment of junior officers and jawans," the officer said.
The SSB is tasked to secure the 1,751-km India-Nepal border and the 500-acre RTC in Gorakhpur is the largest of this 80,000 personnel-strong force in terms of capacity.
The RTC trains new recruits who join SSB in the constable ranks and acts as refresher course centre for other junior ranks.
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