Supreme Court on Annual Performance Appraisal Reports

Everyone knows that out of lacs of employees suffering from reign of injustice and victim of biased attitude of appraiser, it is one who files a case in court and gets ultimate justice from court after lapse of decades. In the same way members of Interviews Board applies their biased mind to reject an officer in promotion process in two minutes of interview ignoring the decade long good report of the same officer on performance. 

Whims and fancies of the appraiser is more important in Annual Performance Appraisal Report as also in Interview than the quality of the officer and this is why the same officer is appraised by different appraiser in different way , gap is like that in heaven and hell. Similarly an officer if interviewed by ten sets of Interview panels will prove my views that an officer is rated extremely poor one set and extremely good by another set of interview panel. 


In public sector bank different officers posted in different states and zones are interviewed by different set of interview panel and where different types of persons write APAR of the same officer in different way. As such marks obtained based on these APAR and marks awarded to an officer by an Interview Board will never do justice with the officer. 


This is why corrupt practices, flattery and bribery continues in all offices in India including public sector banks. Best performers are more often than not rejected and flatterers are elevated in all departments, ministries and also in politics. In such situation one cannot dream of justice at least when even judiciary is manned by corrupt judges, dictated by corrupt advocates and when most of the courts are disabled, handicapped, inadequately manned.

I therefore always plead for seniority based promotions and punishment to those who do not perform in the view of assessment committee manned by ten senior officers.


Though management of banks have been advocating and pretending to put in action merit based promotion for last two to three decades , the assets of banks is moving from bad to worse despite all so-called reformatory steps taken by RBI and Ministry of Finance from time to time. 

Financial results of various banks have proved that the actual health of most of banks is not good despite so-called meritorious officers are heading branches and various regions of the bank. I hope very soon powerful persons sitting at key post will be awakened by these startling judgments and corrective actions will be soon initiated.


Copy of Supreme Court judgment and the resultant government order is presented below. At least Supreme court sooner or later TAKE COGNIZANCE OF UNHEALTHY PRACTICEs PREVAILING in government offices, banks, PSUs and government schools and colleges.


I salute to judge who delivered the judgement and salute to the person who was courageous enough to file a case in court of law to seek justice. 

Such types of historic judgement on Human Resource Management policies will sooner or the later pave the way towards reign of justice and will eliminate all rules which gives less scope of whimsical decisions and which will give more value to knowledge, performance, skill, experience and integrity of the officer than flattery and bribery.



EsttE/ACR matters

No. 21011/1/2005-Estt (A) (Pt-II)
Government of India
Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions
(Department of Personnel and Training)
North Block, New Delhi, 14th May, 2009


OFFICE MEMORANDUM


Subject:- Maintenance and preparation of Annual Performance Appraisal Reports-
communication of all entries for fairness and transparency in public
administration.

The undersigned is directed to invite the attention of the Ministries/Departments to the
existing provisions in regard to preparation and maintenance of Annual Confidential Reports which inter-alia provide that only adverse remarks should be communicated to the officer reported upon for representation, if any. The Supreme Court has held in their judgement dated 12.5.2008 in the case of Dev Dutt vs Union of India (Civil Appeal No.7631 of 2002) that the object of writing the confidential report and making entries is to give an opportunity to the public servant to improve the performance. The 2nd Administrative Reforms Commission in their 10th Report has also recommended that the performance appraisal system for all services be made more consultative and transparent on the lines of the PAR of the All India Services.

2. Keeping in view the above position, the matter regarding communication of entries in the ACRs in the case of civil services under the Government of India has been further reviewed and the undersigned is directed to convey the following decisions of the Government:-

(i) The existing nomenclature of the Annual Confidential Report will be modified as Annual Performance Assessment Report (APAR).

(ii) The full APAR including the overall grade and assessment of integrity shall be
Communicated to the concerned officer after the Report is complete with the remarks of the Reviewing Officer and the Accepting Authority wherever such system is in vogue.
Where Government servant has only one supervisory level above him as in the case of
personal staff attached to officers, such communication shall be made after the reporting officer has completed the performance assessment.

(iii) The Section entrusted with the maintenance of APARs after its receipt shall disclose the same to the officer reported upon.

(iv) The concerned officer shall be given the opportunity to make any representation against the entries and the final grading given in the Report within a period of fifteen days from the date of receipt of the entries in the APAR. The representation shall be restricted to the specific factual observations contained in the report leading to assessment of the officer in terms of attributes, work output etc. While communicating the entries, it shall be made clear that in case no representation is received within the fifteen days, it shall be deemed that he/she has no representation to make. If the concerned APAR Section does not receive any information from the concerned officer on or before fifteen days from the date of disclosure, the APAR will be treated as final.

(v)The new system of communicating the entries in the APAR shall be made applicable
prospectively only with effect from the reporting period 2008-09 which is to be initiated
after 1st April 2009.

(vi) The competent authority for considering adverse remarks under the existing instructions may consider the representation, if necessary, in consultation with the reporting and/or reviewing officer and shall decide the matter objectively based on the material placed before him within a period of thirty days from the date of receipt of the representation.

(vii) The competent authority after due consideration may reject the representation or may accept and modify the APAR accordingly. The decision of the competent authority and the final grading shall be communicated to the officer reported upon within fifteen days of receipt of the decision of the competent authority by the concerned APAR Section.

3. All Ministries/Departments are requested to bring to the notice of all the offices under
them for strict implementation of the above instructions.


(C.A. Subramanian)
Director

To

ALL Ministries/Departments of Government of India


Copy to:-

1. Chief Secretaries of All State Govemments/U.T.s
2. The President's Secretariat, New Delhi.
3. The Prime Minister's Office, New Delhi.
4. The Cabinet Secretariat, New Delhi.
5. The Rajya Sabha Secretariat.
6. The Lok Sabha Secretariat.
7. The Comptroller and Auditor General ofIndia, New Delhi.
8. The Union Public Service Commission, New Delhi.

Copy also to:-

(a) All Attached offices under the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions.
(b) Establishment Officer and Secretary, ACC (10 copies).
(c) All officers and Sections in the Department of Personnel and Training.
(d) Secretary, Staff Side, National Council (lCM), 13-C, Ferozeshah Road, New Delhi.
(e) All Staff Members of Departmental Council (lCM).
(f) All Staff members of the Departmental Council (lCM), Ministry of Personnel, Public
Grievances and Pensions.
(g) NIC (DoP&T) for placing the Office Memorandum on the web-site of DoP&T.
(h) Hindi Section for Hindi version of the a.M.