Deputy Secretary in the Union Ministry of Culture and an Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officer Shah Faesal has withdrawn his petition from the Supreme Court challenging the Presidential order to amend some provisions of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution.

Bureaucrat-turned-politician-turned-bureaucrat was among 23 petitioners who had challenged the Centre's decision to abrogate some provisions of Article 370.

Shah Faesal's decision to withdraw the petition comes months after he was taken back into the Indian Administrative Service in April this year and appointed Deputy Secretary in the Union Ministry of Culture.

Shah Faesal
Kashmiri politician Shah Faesal was sent back to Srinagar on another flight and placed under preventive detention.IANS

According to Bar & Bench, Shah Faesal has now withdrawn his petition from the Supreme Court.

Faesal resigned from service in protest in 2019 to float his own political party Jammu-Kashmir Peoples' Movement in Jammu and Kashmir on March 19, 2019. However, his resignation had never been accepted by the government and he withdrew it later.

Shah Faesal
Shah Faesal along with Shehla Rashid Shora,during the launch of his political party, J&K Peoples Movement in SrinagarTwitter

Shah Faesal along with Shehla Rashid had challenged the Centre's move in Apex Court

Within days after Parliament amended some provisions of Article 370 and completely scrapped Article 35-A, the then bureaucrat-turned-politician Shah Faesal and activist Shehla Rashid had challenged the Centre's move in Supreme Court.

A group of seven persons including Shah Faesal and Shehla Rashid had approached the top court challenging the presidential order revoking special status accorded to Jammu and Kashmir, and also the J&K Reorganization Act.

Reinstated; posted as Deputy Secretary in Union Tourism Ministry

The Union Government on August 13, 2022, issued an order to reinstate Shah Faesal and posted him as Deputy Secretary in the Union Ministry for Culture.

The Department of personnel and training reinstated Faisal who had submitted his resignation in January 2019 and floated the Jammu and Kashmir People's Movement Party.

Faisal was thereafter detained under the Public Safety Act along with several other J&K political leaders in the wake of the abrogation of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir.

After he was released, Faisal quit politics and started signalling that he wanted to rejoin the government service. The government had not, till then, accepted his resignation.

In April 2022, the government accepted Shah Faisal's application to withdraw his resignation. On April 27, Faisal tweeted that his idealism had let him down.

"Eight months of my life from January 2019 to August 2019 created so much baggage that I was almost finished. While chasing a shimmering, I lost everything that I had built over the years. Job. Friends. Reputation. Public goodwill. But I never lost hope. My idealism had let me down," Faisal had tweeted.

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