SUSPENDED OFFICERS DON'T CRY

One of the perks of being in a Government job is the Stability factor. Basically it means that you might be asked questions regarding your incompetence but you will never be held accountable for your inefficiency, laziness or the fact that you simply don't care about the coveted government job you fought tooth and nail for. The idea is to prevail a sense of security among the officers so that they don't tremble in fear in implementing the policies laid down by the government, however as most things do in India, the Cobra effect gets activated when any policy is laid down by the lawmakers for prevention of any mishaps. 

But all is not that bad, there are anti-corruption laws and regulations which may exact severe penalties and punishments if found guilty. Although you might think that the judiciary itself gets walked by a snail in terms of pace, there is some truth to the fact that the Anti-Corruption departments do trap a lot of these bad apples which get media coverage as well, in order to set an example.

I am here to take you through one such case that took place in our department which actually tells a lot about the aftermath of asserting charges on a Government officer. This particular officer ,let him be X had a knack for being upfront in his dealings. X didn't care nor dreaded anyone despite not being that high in ranks.It was X's strong understanding that the job is permanent in nature hence the worst outcome of these "under the table" dealings, which were not that under the table, might get publicized at the most and X was right. There were hardly any people who ever got trapped in any corruption cases in the department got suspended at the most where you get almost 50% salary and if the Department finds nothing in order to charge you(which they don't) then you get reinstated after a few months;plus you get the backpay.

PC- hydnews.net

So X had no reason to worry logically and his insubordination put into the mix made him virtually untouchable. This was not only known to the people within the department but also to the contractors who had to go through X for their pertinent work.

All this was going fine, X had new cars, land, flats and everything else which added more vitriol to his dealings with everyone whether it was personal or professional. Now the thing with getting caught in a corruption case is that everybody is fine as long as you take the tacitly agreed price of your conscience and even the Anti-Corruption people know that, the problem arises when you suddenly start asking for an astronomical figure and start moving the goal post further. The normal "rate" is fixed , depending on your stature and the historical rhythm set by the "has-beens", but if somebody, like in our case X,tries to disrupt the established order then its bound to turn some watchful eyes your way.

X got a bit greedy and had started asking for a larger sum than usual for a simple signature on a file. This triggered unrest among the people who then went to the superior officers of the department, but X didn't care, he thought that if even one person got their way with him at a lower price then nobody would care about his authority(as a corrupt officer) and he cared a lot about his nefarious reputation.

So one such guy who had some influence over the department and was a seasoned contractor came to X for a mere approval. X saw that as an opportunity to send out a message and upgrade his earnings now that even the big players are kneeling before him. So X asked for a lot and eventually got a lot, but then at the stipulated date of approving their file, X wanted even more. There was a heated debate after which X threw the file in the garbage. The contractor didn't even think twice and went straight to the Anti-Corruption department, where they always do the suspect a favor by informing the highest officials first but X was undeserving of any forecast for the upcoming storm.

PC(Indiatoday.in)

So eventually the Anti-Corruption team laid out a trap where they sent the same contractor back to X , readily agreeing to all of X's demands. A quiet and desolated location is picked where both parties are scheduled to meet for exchanging the cash amount. However the cash is laid with a chemical (Phenolphthalein if I'm not wrong) and the serial number of the notes are already with the team. Then they install a small camera at an unsuspecting location where this entire scene could be captured and when the exchange is made then the teams simply come out of the dark to handcuff the perpetrator and is asked to  wash hands with soap which turns red due to the chemical reaction,hence the term red-handed. 

People react differently in these scenarios, some start crying incessantly whereas some try to settle matters then and there by offering some to the Anti-Corruption teams. Overall when you're caught, you're caught and there is hardly anything that can be done there, some media people come in and capture the moments to put everything in public record. At this point you might feel that story ends here, the deserving officer got what was imminent and now the course of law will decide the magnitude of the punishment. But trust me this is not even the interesting part of the story, the normal people believe that justice has been served that the country is devoid of one corrupt officer at least, however the story begins from here but this post is becoming too long and cumbersome. 

Do checkout the aftermath in my next one........

Do comment and follow for more insights of being a Government officer and other rants. Here's a link to my other entries-

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GOVERNMENT OFFICERS' FORMALITY- THE CONFIDENTIAL REPORT

The dreaded time (PC: Google Images)

Its that time of the year now, well that time has already passed if you are working in the private sector. Its Self-Appraisal time, yes that time of the year again when you are asked as to what you did and didn’t so as to remind you again of the insult you are to the organization you work for. Basically its all about giving you a pre-decided raise despite your diligent and painstaking efforts as an employee by first disparaging you and then handing that raise to patronize you by showing how magnanimous of a management there is in place. That’s how it works in the private/corporate sector atleast. In the Government sector, things are a bit different, people don’t really care about it but see it as an opportunity to know about the status of their peers and what’s the ROI on their flattery, showered on their seniors.

Earlier it used to be completely confidential, hence you actually never know as to what irked or pleased your immediate bosses and hence there is no way for you to be absolutely sure. A lot of the malpractices that had crept in to the system as a result and it made the process just a means to favor the sycophants and screw the hardworking employees. Apart from that, I was told by some senior officers that true nature of biased office politics, favoritism and casteism plays a major role in the overall performance review of the employee. The Confidential report is never given to the concerned employee and the only copy stays with the Establishment section( the Human Resources for all you corporate snoots). So you can give your blood, sweat and tears but still come up short because you didn’t arrange for a drink for your senior officer, or you didn’t greet him or a million other tiny little things. Although there is no appraisal in terms of salary as such in the government sector whether you are extraordinary in your assigned work or not but there is a small little column that asks for recommendation for transfers. Now there is only one thing that the Government employees dread and that is getting transferred, because its quite pragmatically challenging for the family to shift your entire lives to a new city. In contrast you might be demanding a transfer to your familiar place as well and that again would be largely decided by your confidential report. Since promotions are based entirely on the seniority (date of joining equals experience equals seniority) and the discretion of the Promotions committee (the same people who have a lot to do with your Confidential report), but suddenly you might find that your letter from the Ministry giving you the good news of your promotion, is just buried under some other files and people beneath you in seniority are getting promoted. Anyway to put an end to favoritism and make the evaluation system more transparent the government deployed the new Government officer Evaluation and Appraisal report system.

So now apparently this system is supposed to be more transparent and unbiased which it actually is but that doesn’t change those parochial minds from speaking their minds. I was lucky enough to be joining at a time when this process was just put into place so I got to witness it in the truest sense. Now there was a lot of ambiguity in this process because a lot of people thought that this is just a new format but the underlying principle of confidentiality would remain the same. That’s where they were wrong, as it backfired in one particular case which cascaded into quite a few later. You see just because you changed the overall format of the paper it doesn’t mean that senior officers will suddenly become cautious, hence they presumed that the “Confidentiality” clause will remain unchanged unfortunately after many discussions and meetings, one fine day the employees started getting their respective appraisal reports.

This caused a havoc because suddenly they are given an insight into a world that was totally unknown to them. Within a matter of days 3 people showed up to our unaware Officer in Charge and caught him off guard. They slammed their reports on his table asking “Why is it that someone else who is not even showing upto work gets a higher grade in terms of accountability, hardwork and dedication. Did I ever ask for any long holidays or showed up late to work?”

PC( Google Images )

The officer in charge was totally appalled and made the situation even funnier by asking, “Who are you?” ( I think I burst out laughing when I heard that). The disgruntled employee says “If you can’t even remember my name when I am in front of you, then how did you grade my work?”. This went on with a bunch of other employees as well a few employees even went ahead and filed an official discriminatory complaint against the senior officials, which though amounted to nothing still managed to scare the senior management a lot. When the dust settled they learnt one thing that this new system needs to be dealt with in a different manner now and hence they decided that employees like me who are Gazetted officers won’t be handed their final assessed reports. But out of nowhere a new Government Resolution enabled us to get a copy of our final reports. So at the end of the it was people like me who actually got the benefit of the earlier ruckus and got a good and sensible assessment. Though as I mentioned earlier it doesn’t amount to anything but it certainly took the gun out of the senior management which trust me is a huge step in being even remotely just and fair in the current Government system.

This year we are going through that process again and I have submitted my own appraisal for the senior managements’ assessment, but that Officer-in-Charge, who was at the centre of this mess , has been stripped down of his review rights and now its on to the direct supervisory officers like me to grade those workers.

Do comment and follow for more insights of being a Government officer. Here's a link to my other entries-

The Election Duty

The New Culture of Godmen

A Prayer for Christchurch

History sheeter

Read More