Action against corrupt officers

Two new items that have appeared side by side on the front page of this newspaper on Wednesday have a very interesting and significant relation. One is about 43 persons who have challenged a Government of Assam decision to dismiss them after they were arrested for allegedly getting jobs of gazetted officers by bribing officials of the Assam Public Service Commission. The other is about 15 senior officers of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes who have been compulsorily ‘retired’ by the Government of India in ‘public interest’ on charges ranging from demanding bribe to hatching criminal conspiracy to financial impropriety. The 43 persons were arrested over a period of time after chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal took a very strong stand against corruption immediately after taking charge in May 2016 with the prosecution saying that they have all admitted before the police that they had procured their jobs – ranging from Assam Civil Service to Assam Police Service to various categories of Inspectors and other officers – by paying bribes to then APSC Chairman Rakesh Paul, and ‘esteemed’ APSC members Basanta Kumar Doley and Samedur Rahman. Interestingly, while Paul was a Notary before then chief minister Tarun Gogoi had found him suitable for heading the APSC. Likewise, Doley and Rahman were college teachers in Dhemaji and Guwahati before they found favour from Tarun Gogoi to be appointed members of the APSC. The 15 senior officers belonging to different central revenue department who have been ‘retired’ from service by the President of India in ‘public interest’ are in various ranks like Principal Commissioner, Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner working under the Central Board of Indirect Taxes. Anup Srivastava for instance is a Principal Commissioner (Audit) in Delhi, G Shree Harsha is Commissioner (DGPM) in Chennai, Vinod Sangha is Assistant Commissioner (GST) in Mumbai, and SS Bisht a Deputy Commissioner (GST) in Delhi. Most of them have assets disproportionate to their income and have been found demanding bribe from other officers and businessmen. All of them will be paid a sum equivalent to the last pay and allowance for a period of three months. This incidentally is the second time that a bunch of senior officers of the central government has been compulsorily ‘retired’ after Prime Minister Narendra Modi began a major clean-up drive following assumption of office for the second consecutive term last month. The government had earlier on June 10 compulsorily retired 12 senior Indian Revenue Service (income tax) officers, including one of the rank of the joint commissioner, following charges of corruption, extortion and professional misconduct against them. The officers who have been ousted include Ashok Agarwal, Joint Commissioner Income Tax, S K Srivastava, Commissioner (Appeal), Noida, Homi Rajvansh, B B Rajendra Prasad, Ajoy Kumar Singh (CIT) and B Arulappa (CIT), apart from Alok Kumar Mitra, Chander Saini Bharti, Andasu Ravindar, Vivek Batra, Swetabh Suman and Ram Kumar Bhargava. A similar action under Rule 56 (j) was taken by the government in May 2016 when 33 officials of the Revenue Services, including seven Group ‘A’ officers, were prematurely retired for non-performance under Rule 56 (j) of CCS (Pension) Rules. All Central government employees are governed by the ‘fundamental rules (FR)’ and the Central Civil Services (CCS) rules and compulsory retirement is a provision in both of them. The Finance Ministry has cited Rule 56 (j) of Fundamental Rules for the recent step. Reports indicate that the axe would fall on a large number of such central government officers in the next few months after Prime Minister Modi has taken a strong stand against corruption. These dismissals are very pertinent especially in respect to large-scale irregularities in selection of officers by the APSC, 43 of whom were arrested in the past two years or more, and the Government of Assam may very well take a clue from what the Centre has done in weeding out corruption from the system. Similar steps probably can be also taken in respect to a large number of officers of the Assam government who have been found involved in corruption from time to time. They include a large number of officers in the Social Welfare department, Agriculture department, Fishery department and Education department, among others.