Assets of IAS, IPS officers under lens

Though the Lokpal Act mandates officers to file IPRs every year and says that those who fail to do so should not be considered for promotions etc., no action has been initiated against any officer so far. Babus who failed to file IPRs for years under ‘wat

POLITICS... PAGE 4

The Centre is closely monitoring those IAS and IPS officers who have failed to submit their immovable property returns for the last few years despite repeated reminders.

Dozens of officers from both TS and AP have failed to submit annual IPR returns for the last five years.

In the wake of demonetisation, the Centre’s department of personnel and training has focused on the banking and property transactions of officers who failed to submit returns despite reminders. The DoPT hopes to detect whether any shady deals took place in buying properties which is forcing or prompting the officials to hide the details.

A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked his party legislators to submit their bank account details from November 8 onwards to BJP president Amit Shah, bureaucratic circles in the two Telugu states were abuzz with reports that the PM issued oral instructions to DoPT stating that the same rule should be applicable to officers who are not complying with the norms on filing annual IPRs.

These reports seem to have created an impact on officers as over 25 officers from TS and AP filed their returns since demonetisation was announced three weeks ago. The rest of the officers too are worried over the implications and gearing up to file returns as early as possible.

Though the Lokpal Act mandates the officers to file IPRs every year and says that those who fail to do so should not be considered for promotions, incentives etc, no action has been initiated against any officer so far.

After Modi came to power in 2014, the Centre took serious note of the non-compliance of norms by IAS officers and sent half-a-dozen circulars to Chief Secretaries of all states to take rectification measures but nothing happened.

There are allegations of a strong lobby of senior IAS officers blocking the moves being made by Centre and DoPT in this regard since then.

However, the Centre is learnt to have taken a serious view and asked DoPT to act tough against erring officers.

As per official data, as many as 54 IAS officers each from TS and AP had failed to submit their IPRs so far for 2015, while the deadline ended on January 31, 2016. Some officers have failed to submit IPRs since 2011.