UP: Compulsory retirement to IAS officers proving to be eyewash

Uttar Pradesh government’s ongoing exercise of giving compulsory retirement to its corrupt and inefficient employees appears to be an eyewash when it comes to Indian Administrative Service officers, thanks to the technicalities involved.

As the review committee constituted to consider cases of 42 IAS officers on Tuesday, the records of four of them were found incomplete while nothing major ‘actionable’ was found against 38 remaining officers.

“We have asked for completion of entries in the records of four IAS officers. The committee will meet again to consider their cases. There was nothing adverse on record against others,” said a senior officer on condition of anonymity.

“IAS officers had been divided into two groups for consideration of the committee- those who have completed 15 years of service and the ones with 25 years of service,” said the officer.

Chief secretary Rajive Kumar presided over the meeting of the committee that included additional secretary (commerce) Anoop Wadhavan, chairman revenue board, Praveer Kumar, additional chief secretary appointment Deepak Trivedi and principal secretary irrigation Suresh Chandra. “This committee is only a recommendatory body and final decision about recommendations will be taken at top political level,” said the officer.

According to sources, the cases of four officers having incomplete record may be put up at the next meeting of the committee, which may meet only next year now.

While a number of state cadre officers may have a clean record, some have tainted record too. Yet, the tainted lot has been able to scuttle a close scrutiny, as a result no action could be taken against them over the years for one or other reason. “The cases of most of IAS officers of state cadre came up at the meeting of review committee held in 2015. So cases of those IAS officers were not referred to the committee in 2017,” said another officer.

It may be mentioned that on directives of state government screening committees had been set up in all the departments. Action has been taken against some employees and lower and middle level officers in many departments.