The Railway Ministry has stopped promotion of officers in two of its secretarial services after alleged irregularities were pointed out by the Finance Ministry.
A scam had come to light in two lesser-known services-- Railway Board Secretariat Service (RBSS) and Railway Board Secretariat Clerical Service (RBSCS)-- where promotions were being made allegedly without following due procedures and bypassing Union Cabinet's jurisdiction.
Terming it as a "serious lapse", the Finance Ministry had written to Railways to "revoke" its decision for promoting these officials through cadre restructuring.
Following this, Railways decided to stop the whole exercise.
"It is noted that Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) and Ministry of Finance (MoF) have pointed out certain anomalies. Corrective action should be taken at the earliest.
"Further promotion based on this cadre restructuring should be carried out after the issue is resolved with the DoPT and MoF," former Railway Minister Mallikarjun Kharge had said in a noting on the file.
In future, no cadre restructuring should be processed without following the due procedure as pointed out by MoF, he had said.
Officials were being promoted to Higher Administrative Grade (HAG) and Senior Administrative Grade (SAG) by bypassing Group 'A' Railway Services like Indian Railway Service of Mechanical Engineer (IRSME), Indian Railway Personnel Service (IRPS) and even the IAS without their having put a minimum of about 16 years of service, official sources said.
HAG and SAG are given to an Additional Secretary and Joint Secretary level officer respectively.
