Govt searches for more ‘Deadwood’ after terminating 21 junior officers

Won’t tolerate officials whose integrity is doubtful: Govt

With Government having ordered termination of services of 21 government employees of various departments after declaring them “deadwood”, it has been learnt that the government is compiling another list of officials whose integrity is doubtful.
It has been learnt from the sources that the high-level panel headed by Chief Secretary which was constituted by the government to examine the corruption cases against the tainted officers will meet soon and examine the corruption cases of officials.
“The high-level panel will meet and examine the cases individually,” sources said.
Sources added that the Chief Minister has categorically asked the top officials of the government to sack the tainted employees “who do not improve their performance”.
Sources said that Chief Minister has also asked the assessment of employees who are habitual of corruption and other unlawful activities.
Sources said tainted officials including senior civil officers are under the government’s scanner.
The committee is headed by the Chief Secretary and the other members of committee are Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister, Principal Secretary Home, Commissioner Secretary of General Administration Department, and the Secretary, Law.
It is pertinent to mention here that soon after the PDP-BJP government took over, the government shot a letter to State Vigilance Organization (SVO), to prepare a comprehensive list of officers who were involved in “corrupt practices” or have been termed as “dead wood” to summarily dismiss them from services or suggest other kind of action, whose offence in corruption was minor.
The SVO was asked to prepare a list of corrupt officials to bring transparency in governance.
The SVO had submitted a list of 162 tainted officials to the government. On July 1, the government terminated the services of 63 officials of whom 25 were allegedly caught red-handed by the SVO while accepting bribe.
According to the sources the number of complaints registered with State Vigilance Organization (SVO) against various government functionaries since January 2015 are 309 with the highest number of corruption complaints being filed against the employees of corporations and Revenue Department.
The Jammu and Kashmir State Vigilance Commission has also received 875 complaints, since January 2015, out of which 552 were heard and disposed of and remaining 305 complaints are under adjudication.
Many of these accused hold plum postings in various government departments despite facing probe in corruption cases.
One of the senior ministers of PDP-BJP government that the government has already made it clear that it would not tolerate the officers and officials, whose integrity is doubtful.
“We will not tolerate the officials whose integrity is doubtful but at the same time government has also taken a decision that that officers with integrity will be given important assignment involving public dealing,” he said.
It is to mention here that the GAD on Wednesday issued individual termination orders to all 21 government employees giving them compulsory retirement by invoking Article 226 against them.
The officers and officials terminated from the government services mostly belonged to Public Health Engineers (PHE), Power Development Department (PDD), Consumer Affairs and Civil Supplies Distribution Department and Revenue.
However, the government didn’t release the list of the employees declared as deadwood to the media. Instead, it directly dispatched termination notices individually to all the 21 officers.
Interestingly no senior or high rank officer falls in the list of dismissed officers raising eyebrows over government’s move to weed out corruption.