AP IAS officers' association seeks safeguards for bureaucrats

The AP IAS Officers' Association plans to appeal to the President of India to ensure adequate safeguard for serving and retired civil servants to perform their legitimate duties.
The Association, which held a general body meeting here late last night, also requested the Government of India to consider statutory provisions to prevent abuse of authority by investigating agencies against civil servants.
The extraordinary meeting was held in the wake of the CBI FIR against former Union Coal Secretary P C Parakh, who is an AP cadre IAS officer, in coal allocation scam.
The Association recommended certain "specific actions" like amendments to Section 19 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, so as to extend the requirement of prior sanction in respect of retired officers for any cognisance to be taken by a court, as well as amendment of Section 197 of the Criminal Procedure Code, to clarify the scope of this section extending to accusations of criminal conspiracy and criminal breach of trust.

"This is required in view of the recent tendency by the CBI to bypass the prior sanction requirement and charge officers by invoking sections of the Indian Penal Code dealing with criminal conspiracy (Section 120-B) and criminal breach of trust (Section 409)," Association secretary J Raymond Peter, who released the meeting's resolutions said today.
The Association also wanted appropriate provisions in the proposed Civil Services Performance Standard and Accountability Bill to protect legitimate decisions taken by civil servants.