26-05-2016	Periodic Review of performance of Government servants in terms of 56(j), FR 56(l) and Rule 48(1)(b) of CCS (Pension) Rules, 1972
24-05-2016	Board office letter dt. 20-May-2016 regarding guidelines on outsourcing of services
23-05-2016	Board office letter dt. 23-May-2016 regarding periodical review under FR 56(j) and Rule 48 of CCS (Pension) Rules, 1972

7th Pay Commission on pay and pension: Once the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission are implemented, the biggest gainers will be pensioners.

 While the 7th Pay Commission pay scale increase of serving employees is 16%, pensioners will see a 23.63% rise. However, the big gain per se is in allowances, which rise by as much as 63%. Here is an elaboration of the 7th Pay Commission pension recommendations:

Going by the numbers, pension payments could well be the next time-bomb. Based on the 7th Pay Commission data, already pension payments account for a third of the government’s wage bill. That is going to rise sharply over the next 10 years. It is driven by the fact that 9.48 lakh employees accounting for 29% of the 30.32 lakh employees on the rolls now are in the 50-60-year band. By this time in 10 years, that means the government will need to pay for an additional million pensioners. So, the pension bill will continue to rise – with better health, most people live almost 20 years after retirement.

The Urban Development Ministry will see the sharpest fall (61.3%) followed by the Department of Posts (41.6%). However, the Indian Railways will account for half of the retirees (4.94 lakh). Despite the 37.5% fall in employees, the Indian Railways will still have 9.22 lakh employees if no new ones are hired.

This is also due to the fact that there has been no real move to reduce the government employee base over the years. While there are 33 lakh employees now it was 32.74 lakh in 2006 and 32.31 lakh in 2010. The only relief from the pension bomb will come when those employed after 2004 come to retirement age. These people are covered under the National Pension Scheme where the pensions they receive will depend on the payout they make while being employed. However, these employees will reach the retirement age a good 30 years from now. Check out 7th Pay Commission on pay and pension quick calculator below:

	Employees (in lakh)	In 50-60- yr group	% share
Railways	13.16	4.94	37.54%
MHA	9.8	0.68	6.94%
Defence (civil)	3.98	1.51	37.94%
Posts	1.9	0.79	41.58%
Urban devp	0.31	0.19	61.29%
Atomic energy	0.32	0.11	34.38%
Health	0.21	0.07	33.33%
Accts & audit	0.48	0.16	33.33%
Revenue	0.96	0.33	34.38%
Others	1.86	0.7	37.63%
Total	32.98	9.48	28.74%

Legal experts have a mixed reaction to the government’s track record in managing its legislative business.

On the face of it, the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance government’s track record on its legislative performance over the past two years appears to shine, compared to the first two years of the previous two regimes of the United Progressive Alliance under Manmohan Singh.

But, the real test of UPA’s legislative skills will come over the next 12 months as and when Parliament takes up the legislation related to the goods and services tax, says legal experts.

The Modi government could steer through Parliament 59 out of 75 Bills introduced over the past two years (excluding finance and appropriation Bills), giving it a strike rate of 78.6 per cent.

Although UPA-I passed 67 Bills in the first two years, the Manmohan Singh-led government introduced 116 legislation to Parliament during that period.

That gave it a success rate of 57.7 per cent. In its second tenure, the United Progressive Alliance introduced 100 Bills in Parliament in the first two years. But, only 47 of these Bills were passed.

When it comes to repealing obsolete and redundant laws, the Modi government fared better. Over the past one year, Parliament passed four Bills to repeal obsolete and redundant central laws.

In all, these Bills repealed 1,179 laws.

However, legal experts have a mixed reaction to the government’s track record in managing its legislative business.

“The government has done fairly well on the legislative front in the past two years,” says Debanshu Mukherjee, who heads the corporate law financial regulation vertical at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.

The government has been successful in enacting several important legislation, some of which are regarded part of ‘structural reforms’, including the Bankruptcy Code, the Aadhaar Act, the Commercial Courts Act, the amendment allowing 49 per cent foreign direct investment in the insurance sector, and the amendments to the Arbitration Act.

“Some of these reforms have been long overdue,” he added.

However, Jagdeep Chhokar, founder member of Association for Democratic Reforms, is of the view that it is not fair to judge legislative performance based on just numbers.

“A number of significant legislation that is of national importance has become prey to partisan politics.

"Take the example of GST legislation that has become a political football,” says Chhokar. All such significant legislation should be based on consensus among political parties, he adds.

Chakshu Roy, head of outreach at PRS Legislative Research, points out that laws passed by Parliament should also be analysed by the level of parliamentary scrutiny they have gone through.

“Many of them were passed without being referred to a parliamentary committee, and with little or no debate.”

While legal experts welcome government’s focus on clearing the statute books of obsolete and redundant laws, Surya Prakash, fellow and programme director at Daksh, which undertakes research and activities to promote accountability and better governance, says it is only the first step in this direction.

“The next steps of harmonising and consolidating multiple laws are the more difficult ones, which must be carried out after extensive empirical studies are done.”

MAKING THE MOST OF MAJORITY IN THE LOK SABHA

Some key Bills passed by Parliament in the 16th Lok Sabha

• The Insurance Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2015
• The Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets (Imposition of Tax) Bill, 2015            
• The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Bill, 2014    
• The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Bill, 2015        
• The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016        
• The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2015

Over the past one year, Parliament passed four Bills to repeal obsolete and redundant central laws

1,179 number of repealed laws

Of these, 421 laws are on substantive issues, 758 were Appropriation Acts

Some obsolete and redundant laws from the pre-independence era that have been repealed

• The Foreign Recruiting Act, 1874  (Sought to restrict recruitment of Indians by foreign states)
• The Indian Tramways Act, 1902  (Applied to tramway companies)
• The Elephants Preservation Acts, 1879 (Dealt with licence to kill and capture wild elephants)
• The Lepers Act, 1898 (Segregation and medical treatment of pauper lepers)  

Importance of following the due process in disciplinary proceedings(click below)

• Importance of following the due process in disciplinary proceedings(33 KB)

MACP ON PROMOTIONAL HIERARCHY CASE AT SUPREME COURT RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS DATED 13/05/2016 CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS PAGE 2         

Office Order No. 54/2016, dated 10-05-2016	AGT-2016 in the grade of Additional/Joint Commissioner
Office Order No. 53/2016, dated 10-05-2016	AGT 2016 - in the grade of AC/DCCorrigendum dated 10-05-2016
Office Order No. 52/2016, dated 09-05-2016	Ante dated promotion in the grade of Deputy Commissioner

04-05-2016	Instruction dt. 14-01-2016 regarding Commissioning of surrogacy
04-05-2016	Strict adherence to prescribed time limit in filing of SLPs before Hon'ble Supreme Court
04-05-2016	70th Fellowship Programme of the World Customs organization Board office circular   |   Administrative provisions   |   Objectives and Work   |   Nomination Form
04-05-2016	Writ Petition No. 10559 & 10560/2015 (T-TAR) filed by M/s. HPCL & ANR., Mangaluru before the Hon'ble High Court of Karnataka
04-05-2016	Constitution of Committees to examine the proposals for write-off of irrecoverable arrears
04-05-2016	Analysis of reports uploaded on All India MPR
28-04-2016	Disbursement of financial assistance from the C & CE Welfare Fund from existing P D Accounts
27-04-2016	Minutes of meeting on Common Cadre & Recruitment Rules
27-04-2016	Minutes of meeting for software development
12-04-2016	Online monitoring of court cases on LIMBS Portal

IRS (C&CE): Demise of a service

It may come as a surprise to many that in approx 346 JS rank appointments; none from IRS (Customs & Central Excise) was accommodated. Indianmandarins’ investigation into the matter has revealed that the absence of IRS (C&CE) officers in the JS rank was rather circumstantial than an outcome of a bias and prejudice against the cadre. The simple reality is that every JS-level appointment is mandatorily done through the process of empanelment. Since batches of IRS (C&CE) of 1987 and beyond do not have Rs 10,000 Grade Pay (on a regular basis) in the parent cadre, they disqualify for JS empanelment and loose opportunities to JS berth each subsequent month.

The state in which the entire C&CE cadre finds itself can be largely attributed to a painfully endless saga of litigation by one of its feeder cadre (Custom Appraiser). Reason of suffering of all Groups-A C&CE officer is ironically none of their own making. The crux of litigation is seniority dispute within the Custom Appraiser ranks. In fact, there is no seniority dispute between Custom Appraisers and direct recruit IRS (C&CE) officers. But due to non finalization of seniority within Custom Appraiser ranks the entire cadre is in shamble.

In view of editor the singular biggest failure of CBEC over past few decades is its inability to manage and control the unbridled career aspirations of Custom Appraisers. It is also important to note that Custom Appraisers were recruited through Civil Services Examination and were of Group B Services. Recruitment for Custom Appraiser was completely stopped in year 2000. So the present litigation is by approx 25-30 appraisers who are still left in the cadre. The blame for this is attributed to the litigation by a handful of officers of feeder cadre (Customs Appraiser) who will be retiring in next few years.

The latest in the series of litigation is a remarkable order by Allahabad CAT. In response to their litigation, the Allahabad CAT on March 03, 2016 ordered the Central Board of Customs and Excise (CBEC) to review the entire seniority list and promotions since 1980. CAT, in its order, asked the Govt to travel back by approximately 40 years in time and un-do and re-do the entire series of promotion and seniority to benefit this handful of appraisers. This CAT decision, being retrospective in nature, has thrown everything out of gear.

Cadre officers say the CAT order has nil probability of implementation because it’s impossible for the Central Board of Customs and Excise (CBEC) to review all seniority list and promotions since 1980.

The timing of the CAT decision was also unfortunate. It came at a time when the regularization process of IRS (C&CE) batches up to 1996 was scheduled in the UPSC in the first week of April. Hardly four weeks were left for DPC when the CAT order struck like a thunderbolt on March 03, 2016.

They are also hugely frustrated over the development and there are obvious reasons too. More than 100 commissioner (C&CE) rank posts are vacant. If all vacant posts are filled by eligible officers it will cover batches up to 1996. However, in the post litigation scenario batches up to only part of 1993 could be promoted. Similarly, promotions to the grade of Principal Chief Commissioner and Principal Commissioner can not be effected because of the CAT order.

At one blow, the CAT order has not only blocked the opportunities of promotion within the cadre, but has also finished the prospects of empanelment to hold Joint Secretary posts in Govt of India where, as per rules, up to 1995 batches should have been empanelled for the rank. Clearly, the order has made the IRS and C&CE cadre a graveyard of opportunities and aspirations.

The morale of officers is hitting an all time low as they find themselves totally helpless and faced with an impossible situation of never ending litigation. Their woes are further compounded by most uninspiring history of cadre management skills by the series of incumbents of CBEC.

Officers of the cadre, which is responsible for collecting almost 50% of the central govt revenue, find the situation sad and peculiar.

With GST around the corner and Government has a high hope on success of GST in reforming the Indirect Tax Administration of the country. There is is an urgent need for Govt to take swift decisive and surgical move to clean up the mess in a service which would be responsible for implementing GST.