Compulsory retirement for corrupt officers on anvil

New Delhi: Taking forward Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s aggressive bid to remove “corrupt” government officials at the Centre, the AAP government in Delhi will now prepare a list of corrupt officials in various departments to be “retired compulsorily.”

Chief minister Arvind  Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia recently called on lieutenant-governor (L-G) Anil Baijal to discuss the issue. Mr Kejriwal also discussed in detail the matter related to compulsory retirement with chief secretary Vijay Kumar Dev.

The members of the Delhi Cabinet have also been directed to prepare a list of corrupt officials in their respective departments. This will be in line with the Modi government’s initiative of retiring such officers under Fundamental Rule 56(J) of the Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 1972. These rules state that the competent authority will have absolute powers to retire any government official by giving him or her a notice of not less than three months or three months pay and allowances in lieu of such notice.

In a letter on June 20 to the secretaries of all ministries and departments, the department of personnel and training (DoPT) had stated that “the ministries/departments should ensure that the prescribed procedure, like forming of opinion to retire a government employee prematurely in public interest, is strictly adhered to and that the decision is not an arbitrary one and is not based on collateral grounds.”

It was during his 49-day tenure as chief minister in 2013-14 that Mr Kejriwal had ordered a major crackdown against corrupt officials. During the last four-and-a-half years, the elected AAP government has reportedly come across officials who opposed public welfare policies for extraneous considerations and harmed the interests of the national capital.

A senior official said: “The government is aware of some cases in which officers refused to implement welfare policies for completely untenable reasons, which require a through probe into their acts of omission and commission.”

Mr Kejriwal had, time and again, said that his government has a zero tolerance policy against the corrupt. But due to lack of agencies, like the Anti-Corruption Bureau, the Delhi government cannot take any direct action against the corrupt and it has to raise the issue of corruption with the L-G.

Earlier, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) was under the ambit of the Delhi government. But a major tussle between the Raj Niwas and the city government over a host of issues, including jurisdiction over the ACB, had forced the Central government to intervene.