Mandatory To Serve "Cooling Off" Period for Govt Officials Post-Retirement: CVC
Noting instances of retired officials taking up jobs in private sector organisations soon after their retirement, the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), said acceptance of such an employment offer without the completion of the mandatory cooling-off period "constitutes a serious misconduct".
All government organisations should mandatorily take vigilance clearance before offering post-retirement jobs to babus, said CVC in a statement.
"It has been observed that on some occasions, immediately after they retired from government organisations, retired officials are taking up full-time job/contractual assignments in private sector organisations," the CVC said in the order issued to secretaries of all central government departments and chiefs of public sector banks among others.
The CVC has asked all government organisations to formulate appropriate rules and guidelines for its employees to ensure that post-retirement, the cooling-off period is mandatorily observed by them before accepting any offer from private sector entities. "The rules and guidelines should incorporate the procedure for seeking or obtaining permission before accepting offers from private sector entities during the cooling-off period if not in existence," explained CVC.
The commission said the applicable service or conduct rules should also be revised and modified to ensure that, if required, appropriate action can also be initiated in case of violation of such rules by a retired employee.
The commission has observed that the absence of a uniform defined procedure for obtaining vigilance clearance, before engaging retired officials by government organisations, sometimes leads to a situation where officials with tainted past or having cases pending against them are engaged by the government organisations, the order said.
