It is a fashion amongst the naive to wrongly perceive and lambast civil servants as guardians of secrecy. The hush hush image of senior civil servants is the result of the historical gag order enforced through the AIS Conduct Rules. Divulging information, expect in an impossibly rare scenario, renders a civil servant liable to disciplinary action. The writings of the civil servants on the files are liable to be scrutinized at will by the C.B.I.; Vigilance Bureau, Chief Minister, Ministers In charge, Chief Secretary and a lot many of others. Courts usually summon the office record for their perusal.
Civil servants at times appear before the Courts personally and are subjected to cross examination or serious questioning. In nutshell, what a civil servant pens down is not a secret, and the existing veil of secretary does not afford him any protection from corrective or penal action. A Civil servant in fact loses nothing if his office notings are posted on the internet for the entire world to see. It is a matter of fact that discretion hardly lies with the civil servants as erroneously perceived by the less informed general public. Having a look at the Standing Orders and the number of times the Civil Servants are overruled or how many times âperemptoryâ written orders are clamped upon the Civil Servants without a question allowed to be asked, can lead to a lot of public enlightenment. Transparency will indeed help the civil servants gaining additional strength, and fear of public gaze will keep a check on those unscrupulous quarters who traumatize the civil servants by exerting pressures under threat of spoiling their bright careers through frequent transfers, bad ACRs or other tools of hounding.
(This note was penned in 2004 by the author in Pre-RTI Act era as General Secretary of The Punjab State IAS Officersâ Associationâ
