The minister said that the Centre is vested with the absolute power to pre-maturely retire government servants in the public interest by invoking the provisions of respective service rules/Fundamental Rule–56 (j). The provisions allow the government to retire in public interest an allegedly corrupt or non-performer government officer.
As a result, the Centre prematurely retired 203 Group-A and 192 Group- B officers.
In the matter of proven cases of grave misconduct, any penalty including removal or dismissal from service, as specified in the Central Civil Services (Classification, Control, and Appeal) Rules, 1965, may be imposed on the Central government employees to whom these rules are applicable, the minister said.
"Since the charged officers are removed or dismissed under these rules by the respective cadre controlling authorities, data of such employees are not centrally maintained," Singh said, responding to a question seeking a number of central civil service officers who have either been removed or dismissed from service since 2017.
Separately, the minister of State for Personnel informed that 221 requests seeking consent for a CBI probe are pending with six states. Singh claimed that requests involving an amount of ₹30,912 crore are pending with Maharashtra, West Bengal, Punjab, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh.
In a written reply to a question by BJP member Sushil Kumar Modi, the minister said that the total number of cases pending investigation by CBI in absence of state government consent stand stands at 221 as of June 30, 2022.
According to the reply given by the minister, Maharashtra has a total of 168 pending cases. While West Bengal has 27 pending cases. The amount involved in pending cases in Maharashtra and West Bengal stands at ₹29,040 crore and ₹1,194 crore respectively.
Punjab, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh together have 26 pending cases with the total amount involved standing at ₹678 crore.
Except for Maharashtra, all the five states are ruled by opposition parties.
