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Problematic Amendments to the Central Civil Services Pension Rules
Revisiting the 2008 and 2021 orders by the respective union governments amending the Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 1972 is imperative in terms of its legality and practicality and to remove the impression that India is a “surveillance state.”
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led union government’s order of 31 May 2021, “gazetted” on 1 June, introducing new rules to amend the Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 1972 has its genesis in a similarly worded order of 2008 by the then United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. The 2021 order renewed these restrictions imposed on retired officers from certain departments, including intelligence agencies from publishing articles on certain subjects without obtaining clearance from the designated “competent authority.”1
The timing of this order gave rise to a feeling that this was another coercive step by the BJP-led central government against certain sections of retired government officers, as the pension order was passed soon after an unprecedented action in West Bengal where the BJP had lost the April–May elections. On 28 May, the union Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions directed West Bengal chief secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay to report at New Delhi to the Department of Personnel and Training by 10 am on 31 May, the day of his retirement. Later, Bandyopadhyay was served another notice, a couple of hours before he retired, asking why he should not be prosecuted under Section 51 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005 for refusal to comply with the central government’s directions (Singh 2021).
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