GIST OF THE MEETING HELD ON 15.03.2022:-
A meeting was held on 15.03.2022 at Directorate regarding the revised Recruitment Rules on the PA/SA Cadres. The percentage of allotment for the Direct Recruits and LGOs through departmental Exams were discussed in detail. Now the allotment is 50%(DR)-50%(LGOs). On behalf of NFPE it was suggested for 40%(DR)-20%(LGOs)-20%(GDS), but department has proposed for 60%(DR)-40%(LGOs) in which 40% will include allotment to SBCO also in future as presently it is 100% through Direct Recruitment only for SBCO. Another meeting will be held soon, in which the status of PA SBCO/RO/CO and other issues will be discussed and the revised Recruitment Rules will be finalized.
LETTER TO CPMG JHARKHAND CIRCLE FOR CONVENING DPC FOR GRANT OF LSG PROMOTIONS AND MACPs TO SBCO OFFICIALS:-
AIPSBCOEA/CHQ/Convening DPC for Promotions of SBCO officials/2022 Dt-11.03.2022.
To
The Chief Postmaster General,
Jharkhand Circle,
Ranchi – 834002.
Sub: Convening DPC for grant of LSG Promotions and MACPs to SBCO Officials…
On behalf of AIPSBCOEA CHQ, I would like to bring to the kind notice of the Chief Postmaster General, Jharkhand Circle regarding delay in convening the DPCs for granting promotions to SBCO officials in Jharkhand circle.
According to rule “Departmental Promotion Committee should meet at regular annual intervals to draw panels to be utilized for promotions over a year. Action will be initiated well in advance without waiting till a vacancy arises. The meeting should not be held up for the reason that Recruitment Rules are under revision. Rules in force on the date of DPC meeting will be followed. Convening of DPC meeting can be dispensed with only after a certificate is issued by the Appointing Authority that there are no vacancies to be filled that year”.
In Jharkhand Circle out of 3 HSG I, 3 HSG II and 8 LSG Sanctioned Posts, 1 official is working in HSG I Posts, 3 are working in HSG II Posts and 3 are working in LSG Posts. The officials who have just entered service and with very few years of service are forced to do the duties of the regular Supervisor (LSG, HSG II & HSG I). These officials do not have experience and proper training for performing the duties of the regular Supervisors which lead to many problems while discharging their duties practically in many units. More over the duties of the PA SBCO and Supervisor SBCO are distinct and have their own responsibility as per all the SB Orders issued from time to time and the Control Procedure laid for SBCO. Hence, it is kindly requested that action may be taken immediately to fill up all the Supervisory Posts (LSG, HSG II & HSG I) lying vacant at SBCO by conducting DPC.
The MACP Financial upgradations are also not granted to the SBCO officials in time due to non-convening of DPCs periodically. This is causing financial loss to the SBCO officials who are due for their Financial upgradation under MACPs.
Hence, the Association requests the respected Chief Postmaster General to kindly intervene in the above subject and issue instructions to all concerned for convening DPCs periodically to grant promotions to SBCO officials for the selection grade supervisory posts and their MACPs in due time.
A line of reply is solicited Please.
With Regards,
Yours Sincerely,
-Sd-
(SHP. JASMINE JALAL BEGAM)
General Secretary AIPSBCOEA.
LETTER TO CPMG MAHARASTRA CIRCLE TO STOP IRREGULAR RECOVERY ON SBCO OFFICIALS UNDER CONTRIBUTORY NEGLIGENCE:-
Ref.AIPSBCOEA/CHQ/To Stop irregular recovery on SBCO staff/2022 Dt: 10.03.2022
To
The Chief Postmaster General,
Maharastra Circle,
Mumbai GPO Building- 400001.
Subject:- Request to stop irregular recovery imposed on SBCO staff in the name of
contributory negligence for petty irregularities …
Reference:- 1. Rule 11(iii) of CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965.
2. D.O. Letter No. INV-17/18/2021-INV-DOP dated 29.11.2021 issued from Directorate.
Respected Sir/Madam,
On behalf of AIPSBCOEA, it is brought to the kind notice of the Chief Postmaster General, Maharastra Circle about the irregular recovery of many Lakhs of Rupees imposed on the SBCO staff in the name of Contributory negligence for petty irregularities which is recently becoming a burning issue in SBCO cadre as if it is a punishment for serving in the Department of Post, for the intentional misappropriation of some other delinquent officials who cause the pecuniary loss to the Government.
The following SBCO officials were brought under contributory negligence and huge amounts of recovery was imposed on them which is against the justice of nature.
1. RG Sanap – PA SBCO Beed HO (Beed Division, Aurangabad Region)- Imposed recovery of Rs. 29,77,342/-
2. Sachin Tripathi – PA SBCO Kalyan City HO (Thane Division, Navi Mumbai Region)- Imposed recovery of Rs. 23,88,879/-
3. PA Pawar- PA SBCO Andheri HO (Mumbai North Division, Mumbai Region)- Imposed recovery of Rs. 15,99,931/-
4. Dipali Patil- PA SBCO Jalgaon HO (Jalgaon Division, Aurangabad Region)- Rs. 20,20,858/-
Such heavy amount of recovery was imposed for the fraud committed by one MPKBY Agent Smt. Seema Gode, her Assistant and staff of Mira Road P.O under Palghar HO in Palghar Division of Navi Mumbai Region during the years from 2012 to 2015. The amounts are being deducted approximately to the tune of Rs. 10,000/- per month for nearly one and half years from September ‘2019 onwards. These officials are paying their hard earned money, earned to run their families to the Department only for the intentional frauds committed by some other delinquent official/person.
The Association wants to make clear about the duties of SBCO staff which are well defined in Manual for SB Control, Pairing and ICO Procedures. Accordingly, the SBCO staff are exercising the decentralized Audit and Accounts duties and their work actually start after accounting of the transactions. Therefore, penalizing the SBCO employees by imposing the recovery of loss irrationally for frauds committed in the Saving Schemes in sub-offices and branch offices is contrary to the statutory rules. The SBCO staff are not related to any type of monetary transactions and accordingly they should not be identified as sub-offender/co-offender in misappropriation cases. It is clearly laid down that under Rule 11 (iii) CCS (CCA) Rules 1965, the penalty of recovery can be imposed on a Government servant only when it is established that a Govt. Servant is directly responsible for the act of negligence and breach of orders causing the financial loss and accordingly the SBCO staff should not be held responsible for any type of recovery in misappropriation cases as they did not contribute either directly or indirectly to the fraud and SBCO staff should not be brought under contributory negligence as they are not involved directly in monetary transactions.
Rule 11 of CCS CCA Rules 1965 (D.G.P&T order No.114/176/78-Disc. II dated 13.02.1981)
(23) Imposition of the penalty of recovery: (a):
In the case of proceedings relating to recovery of pecuniary losses caused to the Government by negligence of breach of orders by a Government servant, the penalty of recovery can be imposed only when it is established that the Government servant was responsible for a particular act or acts of negligence or breach of orders or rules and that such negligence or breach caused the loss. In the case of loss caused to the Government, the competent disciplinary authority should correctly asses in a realistic manner the contributory negligence on the part of an office, and while determining any omission or lapses on the part of an officer, the bearing of such lapses on the loss considered and the extenuating circumstances in which the duties were performed by the officer, shall be given due weight.
(b): Manner in which charge-sheet to be framed:-
As is well known the penalty of recovery from pay is a special type of penalty which cannot be awarded in all types of misconduct. Rule 11 (3) of the CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965, clearly prescribes that the penalty of recovery from pay of the whole or part of the loss caused by the Government servant to the Government by negligence or breach of orders on his part can be awarded only in a case where it has been established that the negligence or breach of orders on the part of a Government servant has led to the loss to the department. But it has been observed that the requirement of the rule could not be properly appreciated by most of the disciplinary authorities. It should be clearly understood by all the disciplinary authorities that while an official can be punished for good and sufficient reasons, the penalty of recovery can be awarded only if the lapses on his part have either led to the commission of the fraud or misappropriation or frustrated the enquiries as a result of which it has not been possible to locate the real culprit. It is, therefore, obligatory that the charge-sheet should be quite elaborate and should not only indicate clearly the nature of lapses on the part of the particular official but also indicate the modus operandi of the frauds and their particulars and how it can be alleged that but for the lapses on the part of the official, the fraud or misappropriation could be avoided or that successful enquiries could be made to locate the stage at which the particular fraud had been committed by a particular person. The disciplinary authority is also required to give a clear finding in the punishment order on both these points. If it is not done, the order, awarding the penalty of recovery will be liable to be set aside. The Heads of Circles and Administrative Offices, etc., are requested to bring these instructions to the notice of all concerned so that the disciplinary proceedings for a penalty of recovery may not suffer from a procedural flaw.
The entire loss caused to the Government is to be recovered from the Delinquent official, the MPKBY Agent Smt. Seema Gode only who committed the fraud with the help of her Assistant Fazlin Shaikh and staff of Mira Road P.O. The meaning of “Delinquent” is one who is proved to be the “accused” or the “criminal” who has committed the theft himself to cause the misappropriation. So, the recovery of amount should be levied on him, if he doesn’t have liquid cash then his properties can be seized/attached by court to bear the loss. Anyhow, he will be possessing the fraudulent amount in his name/family members/in the form of assets. So, amount should be recovered only from the delinquent official through any one source as mentioned above and very serious cases to be filed against him to put behind the bars.
But usually, the Administration is recovering the amount misappropriated from the other innocent officials who come into the scene only after the delinquent official has defrauded the amount intentionally by himself. The relevant vouchers/consolidations are sent to the Accounting office only on the next day of the transaction where it is handed over to the SBCO branch. The officials of SBCO have not seen the depositor, or collected money from him, or tallied the cash across the counter for the particular day of transaction on which the fraud happened. Only with the available documents received, voucher checking is done for the H.O. and all the S.O.s under it by hardly 2-3 SBCO officials on the next day. Now, each and every transaction has to be checked through the vouchers received at SBCO 100% for all the offices including H.O. and the S.O.s under it for that particular date. Practically speaking, almost all the SBCO units throughout the country are filled up by 1/3rd of the total sanctioned strength only. Also, even if the SBCO officials have checked the relevant vouchers for all the criteria as per the SB orders and procedures, the occurrence of fraud cannot be prevented as already the fraud had taken place on the previous day itself. Moreover, the fraudulent person usually do not commit any omission in the vouchers mishandled by him to do the fraud. In this situation it is very shocking that how the administration wants to put the innocent SBCO officials into trap for recovering the amount which was defrauded by a criminal intentionally, without recovering the amount directly from the accused who has done the misappropriation.
This is nothing but, indirectly supporting the criminal who has misappropriated the amount and caused the pecuniary loss to the Government. This is a way of encouraging frauds and patronizing the criminals who misappropriate amounts in crores in this technical/technological scenario. So, a mentality has developed among such black sheep who have a crooked mind of indulging in frauds that the amount he will swindle will be collected from some other innocent officials and not from him fully. So, the amount he has not repaid to the Department will be a profit for such a person. Automatically, in this business minded world, such criminals will continue to do the frauds unless and until very strict methods are not adopted to collect the full amount from the concerned person who has misappropriated the amount intentionally and very serious cases to be filed against him to put him behind the bars.
As mentioned above the innocent SBCO employees who is in no way connected in the frauds are made scape goats for only working for the Department and Auditing the POSB transactions sincerely amidst the technical issues, staff shortage and all the draw backs of the software which is not in a way that each and every fraud can be detected by them. Every possibility/loop hole is there for a fraudulent person to commit frauds in the CBS/GL integrated scenario whatever it is. It is relevant to mention some observations from the legal forums in connection with imposition of penalty of recovery of loss by way of contributory negligence.
Even after clear instructions vide D.O. Letter No. INV-17/18/2021-INV-DOP dated 29.11.2021 issued from Directorate, still SBCO officials are brought under contributory negligence and huge amounts are being recovered from them. Though the SBCO officials are in no way responsible for the monetary loss caused to the Department due to the fraud that had already occurred before the concerned documents reach SBCO, the innocent officials are brought under recovery.
The amounts more than the retirement benefits which the officials may get after retirement are being recovered from the above four SBCO officials which is against humanity. This is an enormous punishment for petty irregularities on the part of SBCO officials for the intentional frauds committed by some delinquent officials/persons.
In the light of the above facts, the respected Chief Postmaster General may kindly interfere and issue clear instructions to all the Disciplinary Authorities to adhere to rules strictly and not to impose recovery under contributory negligence on the innocent SBCO officials who are not involved in the monetary transactions directly and to recover the whole amount of misappropriation from the delinquent official (culprit) who committed the fraud by himself and to file case against the culprit for putting him behind the bars. This act will surely decrease the frauds and will act as a deterrent to those delinquent officials (culprits) who intend to do frauds and will constitute a threat/warning to them.
Hence, the AIPSBCOEA CHQ requests the respected Chief Postmaster General to review the huge recoveries imposed on the above four SBCO officials and stop the recoveries immediately under humanitarian ground. The officials may be awarded with any other penalties under CCS (CCA) Rules 1965 for the petty irregularities instead of such heavy inhuman recoveries. It is also requested to review all the already ordered recovery cases on SBCO officials during the past vide Directorate D.O. Letter No. INV-17/18/2021-INV-DOP dated 29.11.2021 and issue instructions to the disciplinary authorities for withdrawal of the same.
A line of reply is solicited Please.
With Regards,
Yours Sincerely,
-Sd-
(SHP. JASMINE JALAL BEGAM)
General Secretary AIPSBCOEA.
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