EDP cadre officials posted at the same place for long years are potential threat to the privacy of PAN related data of the taxpayers.
The Electronic Data Processing (EDP) cadre of Income Tax Department have no transfer policy, due to which as many as 47 officers above the position of Assistant Director are posted in the same place for more than five years, the departmental reply to a query filed by this correspondent under Right To Information (RTI) Act has revealed.
The Income Tax Department functions under the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and is responsible for maintaining and handling sensitive Permanent Account Number (PAN) related information, business application platform for the internal use of income tax officers and other technical issues.
In the RTI application, this correspondent had asked about how many officers of the EDP cadre, who report to the Director-General of Income Tax (DGIT), have been posted at the same place of posting for more than five years across India, their details including designation and the transfer policy that governs their transfer.
The department replied that there were 47 officers who were posted at the same place of posting for more than five years. It, however, refused to share their details by stating that “since all the officers of EDP cadre are handling sensitive and informative data, their designation and name cannot be shared.” Admitting that the department has no transfer policy, it added that transfer and posting are done on the basis of exigencies and requirements.
The Sunday Guardian has learnt that in multiple regions, there were officers who were working in the same post and place for more than 10 years. These officers of EDP cadre, which is headed by an official of the rank of Assistant Director or above, are posted at regional computer centres across India and are privy to sensitive information of tax payers.
The emails sent to the concerned bureaucrats and the minister in Ministry of Finance, seeking their response on the matter, have failed to elicit any response so far.
Explaining the repercussions of such stagnancy, an Income Tax official posted in New Delhi said, “In the PNB scam, it was revealed that how the bank officials, because of their posting at the same place for a considerable period of time, were able to develop close relations with the people who wanted to cheat the system and were easily able to indulge in unfair practises. The same thing can happen here also.”
“There have been many instances in the past where the department has lost money because the IT officials connived with big tax payers and cheated the department. The EDP cadre officers, if they want to, can also indulge in PAN card forgery, manipulate refund,” he pointed out.
“In many cases, they develop friendly relations with local private individuals, to whom they outsource some of the IT work like data entry, and because of this friendly relation, they do not rotate them within the department despite explicit order to do so, which was emphasised in a circular issued in May 2017,” he added.