NEW DELHI: From now onwards, government officials who prepare the annual performance assessment report of their subordinates will be maintaining a secret diary about their “suspicious” acts, if there are any.
This is part of the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT)’s new guidelines aimed at helping the government take action against corrupt and non-performing officials.
The Department of Personnel and Training framed the guidelines after it noticed that reporting officers often don’t make any categorical remark about the integrity of their juniors in their assessment reports.
The Department of Personnel and Training said, “Supervisory officers should maintain a confidential diary in which instances which create suspicion about the integrity of a subordinate should be noted from time to time and action to verify the truth of such suspicions should be taken expeditiously by making confidential enquiries departmentally or by referring the matter to the Special Police Establishment (Central Bureau of Investigation) or Lokayukta.”
“At the time of recording the annual confidential report, this diary should be consulted and the material in it utilised for filling the column about integrity,” said the order issued to all ministries recently.
A copy of the secret diary should be sent to the next superior officers who should ensure that follow-up action is taken on time.
According to the order, there are occasions when a reporting officer can’t either certify or make an adverse entry about her subordinate’s integrity.
“In all such cases, the reporting officer should make an entry in the integrity column to the effect that he has not watched the officer’s work for sufficient time to be able to make any definite remark or that he has heard nothing against the officer’s integrity as the case may be.This would be a factual statement to which there can be no objection.
“But it is necessary that a superior officer should make every effort to form a definite judgment about the integrity of those working under him, as early as possible, so that he may be able to make a positive statement,” the guidelines issued by the Department of Personnel and Training said.
In cases where inquiries fail to remove or confirm suspicions about an official, he or she should be watched for a further period and, in the meantime, be kept away from positions in which there are opportunities for indulging in corruption, the Department of Personnel and Training order further added.
All Central government employees have been asked to make remarks in the integrity column using one of these three options: “beyond doubt”; “since integrity is doubtful, a secret note is attached” and “not watched for sufficient time to form a definite judgment but nothing adverse reported”.