2. Instructions were issued in confidential Memo No.1718/Ser.C/75-1, General Administration (Services-C) Department, dated 22.11.75 that officers convicted in criminal cases should normally be dismissed from service and it is not necessary either to await the outcome of an appeal or the expiry of the appeal time.
3. Several cases of misappropriation by Government employees of Government money have come to the notice of the Government. In one case, the employee concerned encashed a fixed deposit receipt and instead of depositing the amount realised by him to the Government account, he absconded from duty. Action has been taken for the recovery of the amount from the employee. A criminal case has also been filed against him. In another case, seven drafts of the Reserve Bank of India, for a huge amount were reportedly encashed in a sub-treasury. The certificates of payment disclosed that the drafts had been issued by the Reserve Bank of India, Madras, for payment at the sub-treasury to different parties. The matter was referred to the Reserve Bank of India, Madras. According to the particulars furnished by the Bank, except for the serial numbers of the drafts and the office of the issue, the particular of the amounts, the dates of issue, the names of the parties and the places of the payment were different from the particulars of drafts stated to have been encashed in the sub-treasury. The investigating officer observed, inter-alia, that the sub-treasury officer in connivance with his subordinate staff made some fictitious entries in the sub-treasury records and managed to withdraw the amount in two instalments. The sub-treasury officer and the staff of the sub-treasury had been placed under suspension and the case is pending trial in the court.
4. It was observed by the Public Accounts Committee that there is a wide disparity in the scales of punishment meted out in misappropriation cases as stated in the above para. The question of prescribing uniform scale of punishment in such cases has been considered by the Government. It has been decided that ordinarily cases of proved misappropriation would justify dismissal from service and action should accordingly be taken. There may, however, be rare cases where attendant circumstances, such as trivial amount, short duration, immediate payment on detection, all of which may raise a presumption that it was an error in accounting, which may justify a different punishment. A clear distinction should be drawn between the cases of "delayed remittance" and "misappropriation" having regard to the fact that in proved cases of misappropriation no punishment short of dismissal is normally justified and accordingly the case of ‘delayed remittance’ need not always be classified for the purpose of audit as a case of misappropriation.
OPEN - CCA Rules - References (open)
