CVC seeks mandatory vigilance before offering jobs to retired govt employees

The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has asked all government organisations to mandatorily take vigilance clearance before offering jobs to retired officials, warning against the "serious misconduct" of taking up jobs in the private sector without observing the mandatory cooling off period after retirement.

The CVC said retired officials, on some occasions, take up full-time job/contractual assignments in the private sector, immediately after retirement from government organisations.

"Post-retirement acceptance of offers by retired government officials without observing cooling-off period, constitutes serious misconduct on their part," the anti-corruption watchdog said in an order issued on Thursday.

The order asked government organisations to formulate appropriate rules and guidelines for employees to ensure that this does not happen.

It also said rules and guidelines should incorporate the procedure for seeking or obtaining permission before accepting offers from private sector entities during the cooling-off period, if not in existence.

The government organisations should also revise or modify existing provisions to ensure that appropriate action can be initiated in case of violation of rules.

The CVC said, "There is no defined procedure for seeking vigilance inputs before engaging retired government officials from the organisations where such retired officials were employed on full-time basis, prior to their retirement."

The absence of a uniform defined procedure leads to a situation where officials with tainted past or with pending cases against them are engaged by the government organisations, the order said.

"Such a situation not only leads to unnecessary complaints/allegations of favouritism but is also against the tenets of fairness and probity which is the basic principle governing," it said.

"In respect of retired officers belonging to all India services, Group A officers of central government or their equivalent in other organisations owned or controlled by central government, before offering employment to them on contractual/consultancy basis, vigilance clearance from the employer organisation, from which the government officer had retired, should be necessarily obtained," the CVC said.