The Centre has compulsorily retired 15 senior officers of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs (CBIC) on Tuesday, under Rule 56 (j). The sacked officials include the ranks of Principal Commissioner, Commissioner, Additional Commissioner, & Deputy Commissioner of CBIC.
These officers either had corruption cases registered against them by the CBI or were involved in bribery, extortion and disproportionate assets cases, Finance Ministry sources said. With the move, the government hopes to send across a tough message to bureaucrats taking kickbacks for facilitating tax evasion by companies.
The officers who have been ousted include Ashok Agarwal (IRS 1985 batch), Joint Commissioner Income Tax, S K Srivastava (IRS 1989 batch), Commissioner (Appeal), Noida, Homi Rajvansh (IRS 1985 batch), B B Rajendra Prasad, Ajoy Kumar Singh (CIT) and B Arulappa (CIT). Other names in the list include Alok Kumar Mitra, Chander Saini Bharti, Andasu Ravindar, Vivek Batra, Swetabh Suman and Ram Kumar Bhargava, reported The Indian Express.
All these 15 officers shall be paid a sum equivalent to the amount of pay and allowances for a period of 3 months calculated at the same rate at which they were supposed to be withdrawing them (pay and allowances) immediately before their retirement.
This is the second such incident of forced retirement after the new Modi government came to power on May 30. Almost a week after taking charge, the central government had on June 10 compulsorily retired a dozen senior government officers, including a chief commissioner, principal commissioners and commissioner of the Income Tax Department, under the Rule 56(j) of the General Financial Rules (GFRs). Under the section, the performance of an officer who has turned 50 or 55 or has completed 30 years of service (whichever is earlier,) is being reviewed to ascertain if he/she is liable for compulsory retirement.
In addition, a day after 12 officials were forcibly retired, the CBDT, on June 11, demoted four officials on the basis of "pending" vigilance cases against them. "In view of pending disciplinary/vigilance cases against the four officers, the competent authority has decided not to extend the term of ad-hoc appointment of the officers... Accordingly, the officers are reverted to their substantive post—the Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax—with immediate effect," an order regarding the sacking had stated.
Media reports had suggested that the Cabinet Secretariat and the Central Vigilance Commission had over the past few days given verbal instructions to the vigilance heads in many departments to expedite the process of identifying officers for compulsory retirement under the same rule.
