No promotions if officers don’t file property returns

The government will hold back vigilance clearance for officials who do not file their immovable property returns, blocking their chances of promotion and a stint in the central government. Aloke Tikku reports.

The government will hold back vigilance clearance for officials who do not file their immovable property returns, blocking their chances of promotion and a stint in the central government.

HT Image

The rule has been introduced to ensure strict compliance of timely filing of the immovable property returns, an official at the Department of Personnel and Training said.

The department had this week changed the rules regarding property returns that required the government to treat the property details as a secret.

“The government of India have also decided that the annual property return as on January 1, 2011 of members of the All India Service and other Group “A” Central Service officers will be placed in the public domain,” Dr IV Subba Rao, additional secretary at DoPT declared in his communication to all state governments.

So far, property returns filed by government officers were only scrutinised in case of a criminal investigation or suspicions of corruption.

Several right to information forms seeking details of assets of government servants had been rejected by the government on grounds of privacy.

But the Centre was left with little choice as several states took the initiative into their hands and went ahead to put property returns of All India Service officers of the state cadre on the website of the respective state government.

“So there were officers from the Chhattisgarh cadre serving in the central government whose property returns were in public domain. Since there did not seem to be any problem arising due to the initiative, there seemed no plausible reason why returns of his colleagues should not be placed in public domain too,” a government official said.