THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In view of long delay in initiating disciplinary proceedings against police officials, the government has prescribed time limits and warned of action against the enquiry officials.
Additional chief secretary (home) Nalini Netto issued an order prescribing three months for non-oral departmental inquiries and six months for oral inquiries.
The inquiry officials and disciplinary authorities will be held personally liable for undue delays in completing disciplinary enquiry proceedings, the order said.
Though repeated directives were issued earlier to avoid inordinate delay, scores of departmental inquiries have been pending for many years.
Sources said this prompted the home department to issue a strict order. In order to ensure proper adherence of the fresh directives, the state police chief has been instructed to give monthly reports on the disposal of disciplinary proceedings.
Since many departmental enquiries are pending due to criminal proceedings against the officials concerned, the enquiry official should verify whether the criminal proceedings are pertained to the same set of charges. Otherwise the departmental enquiry should be expedited.
“In many cases, the officer facing the enquiry and the enquiry officer would be having a personal acquaintance and hence the departmental enquiries are being delayed deliberately for years,” they said.
“Police officials facing departmental enquiries also manage to get key posts by taking advantage of the delay”.
