No focus yet on reviewing APR mechanism, FIRs’ disposal
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Dec 17: The PDP-BJP Coalition Government is facing major embarrassment in all the ‘dead-wood’ cases as the Screening Committee headed by the then Chief Secretary and comprising of several Administrative Secretaries had ignored key law points.
The Government in the month of June 2015 had suddenly ordered termination of services of 63 officers including some KAS officers and two Chief Engineers by exercising the powers conferred under Article 226(2) of Jammu and Kashmir Civil Services Regulations, which authorizes the Government to retire a Government servant, who is considered as deadwood, inefficient or is of doubtful integrity and considered to be corrupt.
The fate of majority of these cases has clearly established that no ground work was conducted by the Chief Secretary-led Screening Committee and everything was done in haste, legal experts and official sources told EXCELSIOR.
While exercising powers under Article 226(2) of J&K Civil Services Regulations, the Screening Committee had to examine the Annual Performance Reports (APRs) and entire service record before coming to any conclusion. But this aspect was completely ignored in almost all the 63 cases, they said, adding this was mainly because the Screening Committee was aware of the fact that there is no proper APR writing mechanism in Jammu and Kashmir and this would not become any ground for throwing officials out of the Government service.
About the employees whose integrity was doubtful, the Screening Committee was to examine the number and nature of complaints against them; number and nature of various audit paras in which the concerned Government servants were involved; adverse entries in the APRs concerning doubtful integrity; number and nature of departmental inquiries/preliminary inquiries against them and number and nature of administrative censure, warnings and punishments.
Strict adherence to these aspects that too in respect of 63 officials requires long time but the Screening Committee decided the fate of such a large number of Government servants in merely three meetings held on May 21, 2015, June 11, 2015 and June 26, 2015 respectively and this clearly indicates that decision was taken in most haphazard manner, they further said.
“Though it is claimed that general reputation of the officials was made ground for taking such a harsh decision yet in none of these cases any substance was placed on record to justify bad reputation and the same has rightly been pointed out by the State High Court and the Supreme Court”, legal experts and official sources said.
In certain cases, registration of FIRs was made ground for compulsory retirement of the Government servants but no attention was paid towards the law point settled by the Supreme Court that merely on the basis of registration of FIRs nobody can be held guilty and the same is the job of judiciary.
“It is pity that on one side the Government doesn’t shift the officers from the particular posts even after registration of FIRs against them by the State Vigilance Organization and allow them to enjoy prize postings but on the other side mere registration of FIRs was made ground for their removal from Government services”, legal experts said while pointing towards the Supreme Court judgment, which states that Government servants facing FIRs in the corruption cases shall not be given sensitive/ important postings.
Though the Screening Committee had mandate to co-opt any person as its member and services of legal experts could have been easily utilized by exercising this power yet this aspect was also not paid serious attention, sources regretted.
They said that instead of taking decision in haphazard manner the Government should have adopted the procedure prescribed under J&K Civil Services Classification (Control and Appeal) Rules.
“In each and every case proper departmental inquiry should have been ordered under Rule 30, 31 and 32 of J&K Civil Services Classification (Control and Appeal) Rules and had this been done the Government would have been able to dismiss these employees from the services that too without giving any pensionary benefit”, sources said, adding “there is a Commission of Enquiry under the control of General Administration Department and its services could have been easily utilized for the task”. Shockingly, this post is being utilized for dumping some ‘unwanted’ officers and Commission has not been made functional in real sense.
As the Government has suffered major setback in a number of compulsory retirement cases of 2015, it would have no option but to order reinstatement of majority of these 63 officers.
“The most shocking aspect is that even after facing major embarrassment in State High Court and Supreme Court the Government has yet not initiated any step for reviewing the APRs writing mechanism and ensuring speedy disposal of FIRs by the State Vigilance Organization, which otherwise is imperative for any compulsory retirement decision in future”, sources regretted.
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