Keep number of suspended officials at minimum: Govt to depts

An order of suspension against government employee should be made after considerable amount of care and the number of suspended officials is to be kept at the minimum, the Centre said in a fresh set of do's and don'ts released today for carrying out disciplinary proceedings.
A central government employee would have 45 days to submit his or her appeal after receiving suspension order, it says.
These instructions issued by the Ministry of Personnel in a handbook for enquiry officers and disciplinary authorities assumes significance as Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and Indian Police Service (IPS) officers associations among others have demanded change in rules in the wake of controversial suspension of Durga Sakthi Nagpal by Uttar Pradesh government.

Nagpal, a 2010 batch IAS officer, has been recently reinstated.
The handbook give details of procedure to be followed for carrying out disciplinary proceedings against a delinquent government official.
An order of suspension should be made with considerable amount of care and thought. The number of suspended officials is to be kept at the minimum. Hence, before placing a government servant under suspension, it should be found out whether the purpose could be achieved by transferring him to another place or asking him to go on leave, etc, the handbook says.

The guide book has been published on the recommendations of a Committee of Experts (Hota Committee) which was set up to review the procedure of disciplinary or vigilance enquiries.

"At present, there are a few handbooks for enquiry officers and disciplinary authorities. These handbooks are not official publications but have been written by different authors with knowledge of service law. In our view, most of these handbooks need to be updated," the Committee had observed.
"We recommend that the Institute of Secretariat Training and Management (ISTM) under the Department of Personnel and Training, Government of India will bring out an updated handbook incorporating the latest service laws, the statutory notifications and the Executive instructions. The need for updating the handbooks is felt because the latest case laws and instructions are often not included in them," it had said in the report made public in 2010.

A senior official in the Ministry said the handbook does not carry new set of rules but provides clarification or simplification to most of the existing norms and procedure for carrying out disciplinary proceedings.
"The handbook will help both the disciplinary authority and an accused official to easily understand the service rules and procedure followed therein," he said.