Shah Faesal is an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer. In 2010, he became the first Kashmiri to top the Union Public Services Commission (UPSC) examination. He tendered his resignation from the Indian bureaucracy in protest on 9 January 2019. On 4 February 2019, Shah Faesal began his political life by giving a public speech in his hometown of Kupwara. Shortly after, on 16 March 2019, he announced his own political party, the Jammu and Kashmir People's Movement (JKPM). He left politics on 10 August 2020 and quit the JKPM. He was reinstated in IAS in April 2022 by the Modi government.