Govt may invoke rule to ease out non-performing bureaucrats

The government is planning to invoke a rule which says that if the annual increment of an employee has been frozen for past few years and there have been no promotions for the past five years the concerned officer could be compulsorily retired. According to government sources, this was being done to tone up the bureaucratic apparatus and weed out officials of doubtful integrity 

and efficiency.

The move by the Department of Personnel and Training follows a meeting chaired by Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha recently on mechanisms to be adopted to ensure probity among government servants. The departments have been asked to invoke provisions of Fundamental Rule (56J) to compulsorily retire such officials.

Under Fundamental Rule 56(J), the government has the “absolute right” to retire, if necessary in public interest, any Group A and B employee, who has joined service before the age of 35 and has crossed the age of 50.

Group A comprise officers of All India Services like IAS, IPS, Indian Forest Service, IRS, while Group B consists of non-gazetted officers and Group C clerical and ministerial staff. Under the rules, a C Group government servant, who has crossed the age of 55 can be retired prematurely but action can be taken only if the official is suspected to be corrupt or ineffective.

The meeting emphasised rotation of officers on sensitive and non-sensitive posts and their review and screening under FR 56(J). The DoPT has been asked to monitor implementation and obtain compliance from all ministries in this regard. “As this activity is to be completed in a <g data-gr-id="23">time bound</g> manner, it is requested that priority attention may be paid to it and inputs sent to the internal vigilance section at the very earliest,” the notice, sent to all ministries, said.