Administrative orders rarely comes to the rescue of people who amass wealth by misusing their position as it appears to be the case with the disclosure of immovable property made mandatory for Government employees by lokpal and lokayukta Act 2013. Repeated extension of deadline for non-cooperating officers of Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Police Service (IPS) and Indian Forest Service (IFS) seems to be rescuing babus from punitive action deemed necessary to put brakes on corrupt practices.
Following the lokpal and lokayukta Act 2013 which provide for the establishment of a body of lokpal for the Union and lokayukta for States to inquire into allegations of corruption against public functionaries; officers must now reveal property details in a specified format on the portal of the controlling department. Secretary of Personnel, Administrative Reforms and Rajbhasha, Ratan Kumar could not be reached to know the department’s initiative on the mandatory disclosure by officials of the Central Government deputed in Jharkhand.
“The date has been extended and so far as the IAS officers of Jharkhand cadre are concerned they have come forward with details of their immovable property. Those who have not submitted would not have done deliberately. Extension and delay do not reflect that they are corrupt,” said Joint Secretary of Personnel, Administrative Reforms and Rajbhasha, Suman Kumar.
The last date for filing of revised returns for the year 2014 and the returns for the year 2015 by public servants under the Public Servants (Furnishing of Information and Annual Return of Assets and liabilities and the limits for Exemption of Assets in Filing Returns) Third Amendment Rules, 2015 has been extended from 15 October, 2015 to 15 April, 2016 for the obvious reason of less disclosure against the total strength of employees. Notably, the Immovable Property Return Portal maintained by Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Ministry of Home Affairs and IPR portal for IAS maintained separately by Department of Personnel & Training reveals that around 25 IFS officers, 26 IAS officers, and 96 IPS officers correspondingly of Jharkhand cadre have not furnished their immovable property details. However, as the deadline is being extended before the previous expires saves those officials from being categorised as defaulters and liable for punitive action.
"One has to fall under the category of defaulter to face penal actions under the provisions of the Act however the deadline is being extended even before expiry of the existing so it would not be wise to push for disclosure at this point of time. Anyway, it has to be done voluntarily and department cannot do anything," added Kumar.
Nonetheless, an official of the Personnel, Administrative Reforms and Rajbhasha confided that if the deadline expires then the department could follow up the disclosure compliance with the defaulters.