The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has said retired officials accepting jobs in private sector organizations without the mandatory cooling-off period constitutes “serious misconduct”.
In an order, the CVC further said that all government organisations should mandatorily take vigilance clearance before offering post-retirement jobs to officials.
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“It has been observed that on some occasions, immediately after their retirement from government organisations, retired officials are taking up full-time job/contractual assignments in private sector organisations,” the CVC said on Thursday in the order issued to secretaries of all central government departments and chiefs of public sector banks among others.
Quite often, the cooling-off period, as prescribed under the rules of organizations concerned, is not observed before taking up such offers, it said.
“Post-retirement acceptance of the offer by retired government officials without observing cooling-off period constitutes a serious misconduct on their part,” the probity watchdog said.
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All government organizations may, therefore, 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 order said.
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, it 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 retired employees, the commission said.
In the order, the CVC has outlined the procedure for government organizations for obtaining vigilance clearance for retired-babus before employing them.
“There is no defined procedure for seeking vigilance inputs before engaging retired government officials from the organisations where such retired officials were employed on a full-time basis, prior to their retirement,” it said.