IAS, IPS officers accepting awards from private bodies violates norms: Centre

The Union government has informed the state governments that members of All India Services (AIS) are violating instructions about accepting awards from private institutions and directed the chief secretaries to ensure that IAS-IPS officers stick to the guidelines.

Reiterating that it is inappropriate if members of AIS accept awards from private bodies, the Union government has said that IAS-IPS officers can accept awards from private bodies only after prior approval of the competent authority.

The Centre has clarified that competent authority may grant approval only in exceptional circumstances and subject to conditions such as that the award should not have any monetary component in the form of cash or facilities and the credentials of the private bodies/institutions/organisations should be unimpeachable.

The June 22 missive of the Union ministry of personnel, public grievances and pensions (department of personnel and training) sent to chief secretaries say that the instructions were “issued from time to time” regarding acceptance of awards by members of the AIS (IAS-IPS etc) from government and private bodies/institutions/organisations in accordance with Rule 12 (1) of the All India Services (Conduct) Rules, 1968.

“It has, however, been observed that members of the AIS are accepting awards/recognition accorded by private bodies /institutions /organisations, and the aforementioned instructions are not being followed in their true spirit,” reads the letter of the central government.

On July 17, the Haryana government sent the central government’s letter to all the Haryana cadre IAS and IPS officers to “ensure strict adherence” of the guidelines.

The Centre has said that it was stipulated vide department of personnel and training (DoPT) October 20, 1993, letter that awards sought to be given by private bodies and institutes to members of the AIS do not need to be encouraged, inter alia, because of the fact that there are various methods open to government to recognise the merits and service of a member of the AIS. The letter says that it would not be appropriate to accept an award from a private body.

However, in exceptional circumstances like rewarding the merit of an officer for work done outside the purview of his functions in government or where government thinks that an individual officer deserves a particular award, it was left to the discretion of the competent authority to decide in a judicious manner and based on the main criterion that such an award should not have a monetary component.

The Centre has further said that the DoPT had again clarified vide August 9, 1994, letter that “it is not appropriate for members of the AIS to accept awards from private bodies.”

Now again the DoPT has clarified that awards given by private bodies/institutions/organisations may be accepted only with prior approval of competent authority. In the case of officers serving in the state, the competent authority would be the state government, while in the case of officers serving in the Centre, the competent authority would be the secretary of the ministry/department concerned. And in case of secretaries to Government of India, the competent authority would be the Cabinet secretary.

“All ministries, departments of Government of India and state/UT governments are requested to ensure strict adherence to these guidelines,” the DoPT has stated.