New Delhi: The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has compulsorily retired 22 more officers on charges of corruption under Fundamental Rule 56 (J).
The officers retired are of superintendent and AO ranks. They include K.K. Uikey, S.R. Parate, Kailash Verma, K.C. Mandal, M.S. Damor, R.S. Gogia, Kishore Patel, J.C. Solanki, S.K. Mandal, Govind Ram Malviya, A.U. Chhapargare, S. Asokaraj, Deepak M. Ganeyan, Pramod Kumar, Mukesh Jain, Navneet Goyal, Achintya Kumar Pramanicik, V.K. Singh, D.R. Chaturvedi, D. Ashok, Leela Mohan Singh and V.P. Singh.
The charges against the officers include corruption and failing “to maintain absolute integrity, devotion to duty and acting in a manner unbecoming of a government servant”.
The retirements are “in line with what the Hon’ble Prime Minister has said in his address to the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort and also in his interview to a major economic daily”, the CBIC order dated 26 August said.
The order quotes the PM as saying, “Some black sheep in the tax administration may have misused their powers and harassed taxpayers, either by targeting honest assesses or by taking excessive action for minor or procedural violations.”
“We have recently taken the bold step of compulsorily retiring a significant number of tax officials, and we will not tolerate this type of behaviour,” it added.
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Spate of retirements
The retirements come a little more than a month after the government retired 27 high ranking IRS officers including 12 officers from the CBDT on charges of corruption, sexual harassment and abuse of power among others.
The action is in keeping with the Modi government’s stated objective of getting rid of corrupt and non-performing officials. In June, after retiring senior IRS officers from the service, the government had asked all ministries and Public Sector Units (PSUs) to recommend names of officers every month for premature retirement under Fundamental Rule 56(j) (1) and Rule 48 of CCS (Pension) Rules, 1972. Fundamental Rule 56(j) of Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 1972, provides for compulsory retirement of government staff in public interest.
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