‘Minor PUnishMents cannot be Used to deny ProMotions’

The circular is a relief for officials victimised by seniors and denied promotions.

With the objective to stop officers from being victimised by their seniors on minor pretexts or with the intention to push them to deviate from the rules, the government has re-issued a July 2008 circular stating that minor punishments like “administrative warnings”, which are readily issued by senior officials against their junior colleagues and are later used as a reason to stop promotions, will not be considered as reason to deny promotions.

The circular, which was is- sued in the first week of December 2016, has come as a major relief for officials who were routinely victimised and experienced problems in promotions because of the warnings that were issued to them by their seniors and which were later used to deny them promotions.

As per the circular, which was issued by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Department of Personnel & Training, in July 2008 and was “reiterated” again on 6 December 2016 for “strict compliance”, states that “Warning, letter of caution, reprimands or advisories administered to government servants do not amount to a penalty and, therefore, will not constitute a bar for consideration of such government servants for promotion.”

The circular further goes on to say that “a warning is administered by any authority superior to a government employee in the event of minor lapses like negligence, carelessness, lack of thoroughness, delay etc. It is an administrative device in the hands of superior authorities for cautioning government employees with a view to toning up efficiency and maintaining discipline.”

According to officials, in recent years, there have been an increasing number of instances where administrative warnings were used as a pretext to stop promotions of employees by superior officials or political bosses.

“Administrative warning is not recognised as a penalty, but still we were witnessing many instances where a deserved promotion was denied because the official concerned was served ‘warning’ by his senior officer. However, ‘warning’ is the basic administrative tool to regulate the working of officials and it in no way can be made a parameter to deny promotions. To deal with serious lapses, we have the necessary system in place for which there are a set of procedures that needs to be followed. We had come across instances where a junior officer was forced to do something which ideally he should not have because of the threat of ‘warning’ being issued against him by his bosses which then would have hampered his growth in the future. The fact that the government was forced to ‘bring back’ the circular to remind the officials not to misuse warnings shows how it was being misused,” a director level official with the Ministry of Defence said.

The circular has further asked “all the disciplinary authorities in ministries/ departments to keep in view the above guidelines while dealing with disciplinary cases against government servants”.

“Administrative warning is not recognised as a penalty, but still deserved promotions were denied because the official was served a warning.”

The Delhi Metro has refuted media reports claiming that 10 Metro stations would go completely cashless from Sunday.

The 10 Metro stations—Rohini East and Rohini West on the Red Line; MG Road Station on Yellow Line; Mayur Vihar Phase-I, Nirman Vihar, Tilak Nagar, Janakpuri West, and Noida Sector-15 on Blue Line; and Nehru Place and Kailash Colony on the Violet Line—would have one cash counter functioning always, along with two token vending machines (TVMs), which will also accept cash as a mode of payment for commuters who are not comfortable with using digital payment methods, a Delhi Metro spokesperson confirmed to The Sunday Guardian.

However, as a pilot project, these stations would be focusing on digital payment methods for which the Delhi Metro would be using the e-wallet company Paytm as the payment gateway for commuters to buy their tokens or smart cards. Besides this, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) would also facilitate the usage of debit and credit cards at all these stations.

Asked why only Paytm has been chosen as their digital payments bank, the DMRC official spokesperson said, “It is not now that we have chosen Paytm. Paytm had always been a partner with the DMRC and it had been roped in through a proper tendering and competitive process.”

The spokesperson further added that the Delhi Metro is in the process to bring in other digital e-wallets for payments platform for convenience of the commuters.

The 10 Metro stations have been chosen based on certain prominent factors like footfall, smart card users in these stations (over 70%) and adequate mobile connectivity,

Delhi Metro has also said that once launched, this project will be monitored round the clock for feedback emanating from the ground after which a decision on the further course of action would be taken on whether to extend it to more stations or not.