MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court upheld the reinstatement of a Railway Protection Special Force (RPSF) constable, who was dismissed from service for erroneously replying with a ‘thumbs up’ emoji to a WhatsApp message about the murder of a senior officer.
An appeal filed by the director general of the Railway Protection Force (RPF) in 2024, against a single judge’s order directing the constable’s reinstatement, was dismissed by a division bench of the court recently, observing that the emoji could also mean ‘OK’, indicating that the constable has seen the message, and need not be construed as misconduct.
As per the division bench’s order, the incident took place in February 2018. When the constable, Narendar Chauhan, received a message on an office WhatsApp group that an assistant commandant was killed by a constable in Meghalaya, he had replied to the message with a ‘thumbs up’ symbol. Construing this as Chauhan rendering moral support to the murder accused, the RPF issued a charge memo to him.
After an inquiry, he was removed from service and the same was confirmed by the appellate and revisional authorities. Chauhan moved the high court against his dismissal in 2021.
He also explained that he had sent the said emoji by mistake, and it was not his intention to support those who killed the officer. The single judge who heard his plea ordered his reinstatement after he agreed to forego his claim on backwages. Challenging the single judge’s order, the RPF had filed an appeal.
The deputy solicitor general appearing for RPF contended that the ‘thumbs up’ symbol is clearly a mark of celebration and therefore the message amounts to misconduct.
Hearing both sides, a bench of justices D Krishnakumar and R Vijayakumar accepted Chauhan’s explanation and observed that Chauhan was unfamiliar with WhatsApp and had erroneously shared the emoji. They went on to add that the emoji could also be construed as an alternative for ‘OK’.
“Therefore, sharing the emoji cannot be considered as celebration, but just an acknowledgement that the petitioner had seen the message,” the judges opined, and upheld the single judge’s decision to reinstate Chauhan’s service without backwages.