NEW DELHI, May 12: A parliamentary panel has slammed the discriminatory policy adopted by country’s premier investigative agency CBI in promotion of officers joining on deputation basis and members of its own cadre who, it said, are kept at “disadvantageous position” in career growth.
Recommending that cadre personnel and officer should be given a major role in policy making, the panel said agency should have a relook on the policy to depend on other services for filling its ranks.
The committee was disappointed to note that “deputationist officers in the rank of SP were directly promoted as DIG, whereas cadre officers in the rank of SP were promoted as SSP only which is a lower rank”.
“Should the Committee derive that the departmental officer is placed at a disadvantageous position, although he is having an obvious edge over the deputationist, in terms of skill experience and expertise owing to his continuous exposure to specialised investigation which is regularly being done in CBI?,” the Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice has noted.
The data presented by the agency shows that a CBI cadre officer’s chances to climb ranks reduce drastically in higher ranks as the quota of deputationists increasing.
It also reveals that CBI has not recruited any officer at the rank of Dy SP for last 10 years while Constables have not been inducted since 2004.
According to CBI, deputation based quota at Constable level is 60 per cent, Head Constables its 20 per cent, ASI its 25 per cent, Inspector 50 per cent, DySP 50 per cent, Additional SP 10 per cent, SP 60 per cent, DIG 75 per cent, Joint Director 80 per cent.
No officer of CBI cadre can hope to rise to the post of Additional Director and above as these are only for IPS officers.
The CBI Director, in the defence of the policy, said discipline and integrity issues can be better handled with deputation officers who could be sent back to their cadre which is not possible with internal staff who form a group of “disgruntled officers”.
Rejecting the explanation given by the agency chief, the panel said, “The argument, that punitive action is taken against cadre personnel, while a deputationist is merely repatriated to his parent department, in itself, is indicative that unequal working conditions prevail in the organisation for the departmental personnel vis-a-vis the deputationists.”
The Committee said it does not see this as a healthy trend and the CBI Director’s statement on this issue “reflects only the state of helplessness in relation to the situation of manpower in the CBI which is not a desirable situation”.
The Committee is unable to comprehend the reason for fixing such a high percentage as the quota for deputation in the ranks from Constable to Joint Director, it said.
The panel warned that the policy of not opting for direct recruitment in the ranks of Constable and Dy. SP would, in the long run, lead to a situation wherein CBI would be totally dependent on other Departments/States for their personnel.
It agreed that deputationists bring in a different exposure into the organisation and said it is more than convinced that the organisation should never be dominant by the deputationists as such a state would never be congenial for the functioning of the CBI in the desired spirit.
“The Committee strongly recommends that sincere efforts should be made to ensure that the departmental personnel get adequate promotional avenues and that their expertise and knowledge should be optimally utilised,” it said. (PTI)
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