Govt issues draft rules on requests to prosecute IAS officers
New Delhi: In a bid to deal with corruption among bureaucrats, the Central government is reconsidering the rules requiring government sanction to prosecute IAS (Indian Administrative Service) officers.
The department of personnel and training (DoPT), headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Central government’s nodal department for service-related issues, on Thursday came out with a set of draft instructions for handling requests received from private persons to obtain sanction for prosecution of IAS officers.
“It has been decided to solicit public opinion/comments in respect of processing of proposals or requests received from private persons for sanction for prosecution of a IAS officer serving in the State Government or Central Government under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988,” said the draft instructions, seeking the views of all stakeholders by 12 August.
The move follows a Supreme Court judgement in 2012, wherein the court had noted that, “there is no provision either in the (Prevention of Corruption Act),1988 Act or the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (Cr.PC) which bars a citizen from filing a complaint for prosecution of a public servant who is alleged to have committed an offence”. The case was filed by Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy against former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Swamy had also sought the prosecution of a number of civil servants for alleged connection to the 2G spectrum allocation scam.
“…we deem it proper to observe that in future every competent authority shall take appropriate action on the representation made by a citizen for sanction of the prosecution of a public servant, so as to identify and obviate the areas causing delays in processing of such proposals...,” the SC had ruled.
DoPT’s draft instructions state that after the SC decision they got requests from private persons seeking sanction for prosecution in respect of officers, without any proper proposal and supporting documents.
The government already has a detailed procedure in place to deal with prosecution sanctions requested by investigating agencies. Thus, following the court order, it has now decided to streamline the procedure for handling the requests for prosecution sanction received from private persons.
The draft rules propose to involve state governments at every step, while dealing with such requests from private individuals.
They propose that a complaint from a private individual seeking sanction for prosecution of an IAS officer serving in the state government is routed through the concerned state government as they are best placed to provide basic inputs regarding the alleged misconduct of the concerned public servant.
Even the proposal directly received by the DoPT would be forwarded to the state governments for preliminary examination and in case there is a prima facie case against an IAS officer, the state government should prepare a detailed report and consider obtaining the version of the concerned officer, the rules proposed.
“In case the concerned State Government after examination of relevant records and other evidence is of the view that prima facie no case is made out of any alleged misconduct which may constitute an offence under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, that State Government shall inform the person who has made a request for sanction for prosecution under the said act and endorse a copy of the same to this department,” the draft rules stressed.
But if a report along with all relevant records and evidence, with the approval of the concerned authority is received, wherein a prima facie case is made out, the same will be treated as a proposal to initiate action against the officer.
Interestingly, the stipulated period of three months for disposing such proposals will only commence from the date of receipt of the complete proposal with all relevant material and reports from the state governments.
The DoPT has sought comments till 12 August and the draft rules will be finalised once all the comments, views and suggestions are processed.