Constitutional Protection for bureaucrats to continue

Corrupt government officials don’t need to worry. The government has decided to reject demands for diluting the constitutional protection accorded to bureaucrats against their removal, a demand reiterated just two months back by Law Minister M Veerappa Moily, reports HT Correspondent.

Corrupt government officials don’t need to worry. The government has decided to reject demands for diluting the constitutional protection accorded to bureaucrats against their removal, a demand reiterated just two months back by Law Minister M Veerappa Moily.

The constitutional protection to bureaucrats was aimed at ensuring that they could act independently and honestly but often stands in the way of the government proceeding against the corrupt as well.

Moily had told a seminar on corruption in September that he had taken up the need to “revisit” the constitutional provision (Article 311) with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

But the government told Parliament this week that there was no proposal to amend the Constitution.

“There is no proposal with the Government to amend Article 311 of the Constitution of India, which provides for certain protection to Government employees,” Prithviraj Chavan, Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel — the Prime Minister is the cabinet minister incharge — told Rajya Sabha on Thursday.

Chavan also rejected suggestions that the government had proposed a new legislation for seizure of illegal assets of officials in corruption cases.

The Second Administrative Reforms Commission had also made similar recommendations.