Governance Now: Story: Wednesday, August 02, 2017.
A single
adverse entry in the annual confidential report (ACR) of a government official
can be enough to ruin a promising career. Many officials decide to take
premature retirement as their chances of promotion are scuttled when they get a
‘good’ instead of a ‘very good’ assessment in the ACR.
But, the
latest case puts a question mark on the system of ACRs that were introduced in
the 1940s.
The principal
bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) has ruled against a vice admiral, who
was accused of favouring his son-in-law while downgrading other officers in
their ACRs. The bench also ordered Vice Admiral P K Chatterjee to pay Rs 5 lakh
as compensation to the petitioner, Commander S S Luthra, who has since retired,
reported Indian Express.
The Central
Information Commission has noted that the ACR system that was in vogue since
British rule “makes the bosses super powers and subjugates the subordinate
officers into slaves totally depending on the mercy of the superior officers”.
“They are
also kept in dark about what remarks were made against them. There was no
chance of correction or review or appeal,” it said.
In fact, an
office memorandum dated September 21, 2007 of the department of personnel and
training said, with regard to RTI, that the public authority is not under
obligation to disclose ACRs of any employee to the employee himself or to any
other person in as much as disclosure of ACRs is protected by clause (j) of sub
section (l) of Section 8 of the RTI Act; and an ACR is a confidential document,
disclosure of which is protected Official Secrets Act, 1923.
Aggrieved
officials have been forced to move court after being poorly appraised.
On May 12,
2008, the supreme court passed an order in the case of an official who did not
have ‘very good’ entry but only ‘good entry’ for the year 1993-94 and he was
not considered for the promotion to the post of superintending engineer.
“In our
opinion, the 'good' entry should have been communicated to the appellant so as
to enable him to make a representation praying that the said entry for the year
1993-94 should be upgraded from 'good' to 'very good'. Of course, after
considering such a representation it was open to the authority concerned to
reject the representation and confirm the 'good' entry (though of course in a
fair manner), but at least an opportunity of making such a representation
should have been given to the appellant, and that would only have been possible
had the appellant been communicated the 'good' entry, which was not done in
this case. Hence, we are of the opinion that the non-communication of the
'good' entry was arbitrary and hence illegal, and the decisions relied upon by
the learned counsel for the respondent are distinguishable,” the apex court
said in Dev Dutt vs Union Of India & Ors.
“In our
opinion, every entry in the Annual Confidential Report of every employee under
the State, whether he is in civil, judicial, police or other service (except
the military) must be communicated to him, so as to enable him to make a
representation against it, because non-communication deprives the employee of
the opportunity of making a representation against it which may affect his
chances of being promoted (or get some other benefits),” the court added.
In Maneka
Gandhi vs Union Of India, the supreme court on January 25, 1978 had also made
it clear: “It is one of the fundamental rules of our constitutional set-up that
every citizen is protected against exercise of arbitrary authority by the state
or its officers. Duty to act judicially
would, therefore arise from the very nature of the function intended to be
performed, it need not be shown to be super-added. If there is power to decide
and determine to the prejudice of a person, duty to act judicially is implicit
in the exercise of such power. If the essentials of justice be ignored and an
order to the prejudice of a person is made, the order is a nullity. That is a
basic concept of the rule of law and importance thereof transcends the
significance of a decision in any particular case.”
Incidentally,
a study of the government appraisal system in Gujarat had shown the challenges
in the ACR system.
“The five
features of the effective appraisal system studied in the current research
(purpose, source, feedback quality, link of ACR system with other HRM (human
resource management) functions, and administrative effectiveness) indicate that
the overall appraisal system is ineffective. The overall appraisal system was
perceived to be subjective and one directional in character by the study
respondents. Furthermore, respondents perceived the appraisal system to be a
ritual and where MOs (medical officers) hardly got to know about their
performance, especially good performance. Hence, the feedback loop, an
important feature for an effective appraisal system, was absent. The overall
ACR system functions in isolation with no link to other HRM functions such as
training and counselling, and a weak link with salary administration and
promotion,” said the study.
The National
Judicial Academy has observed after going through all the related documents on
Annual Confidential Reports, the major problem being discussed in this area is
while filling up ACRs of the officer only those remarks are being communicated
to them which are adverse in nature.
“There is a
need for the communication of all kind of remarks because that might affect the
concerned officer’s promotion in his office in some way or the other,” it said.
“Any entry
recorded as 'good' must be communicated to the appellant and an opportunity to
make representation for upgrading the same must be given to him. The principle
of natural justice met only when entries in ACR of public servant is
communicated to him with a right to make representation for upgrading of the
same. Therefore, it is important that there should be timely communication of
remarks of ACRs so that the officers are given this opportunity to improve
their remarks and would not face such problems in their employment,” said the
NJA report.
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