CBI prevents staff staying at a post for over 3 years

CBI had released an order regarding the same on 6 November.

NEW DELHI: Coming on the heels of the 20 September mass-scale “transfer” orders of at least 281 Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials, the CBI in its latest order, that was released on 6 November, has ordered that any agency personnel, including ministerial staff, holding the same portfolio/desk for more than three years as on 31 October 2019, should be removed from the said post and sent to a different post. The rule had been in existence even before, but was not being implemented.

The direction further adds that no personnel would be allowed to hold the same charge/desk/portfolio for more than three years after 15 November 2019. All heads of the branches have been asked to comply with the order and send certificate of compliance to CBI director Rishi Shukla by 15 November.

On 20 September, the CBI had carried mass-scale “transfer” of at least 281 officials. However, it had later emerged, as reported by this newspaper (‘CBI mass transfers an eyewash, no official shifted out of Delhi’), in the majority of the cases, the “transferred” employees were shifted from one post to the other in the same department, thereby killing the very purpose of carrying out such an exercise.

The recent 6 November order, according to agency officials, confirms the allegation made in the several grievance letters detailing how some officials of the agency were working in the same place and post for years now, in direct contravention of official rules and regulations, while those who had been speaking out against instances of corruption, unprofessionalism and other “irregularities” in the agency, were being transferred as “punishment”. The letters were sent by some CBI officers to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) .

Sources said that this recent order, which is the result of a push from the highest level of the government, if carried out in spirit and is not manipulated by senior officers, will go a long way in making the investigating body more professional.

A mid-level officer with the agency said: “Right now, whoever is an expert in surrendering himself to the senior officers, gets the posting of his choice and no one touches him or her for years. Those who speak out against the irregularities are shunted and transferred to locations that are far from their homes so that they ‘fall in line’. A DSP level officer has seen two postings in three months because he refuses to obey illegal orders of his seniors. We hope that with the top level of the government keeping an eye on what is happening in the agency, our seniors will take decisions on merit rather than any other reasons.”