The Centre is unlikely to exempt government employees from filing the details of their assets and liabilities along with that of their spouses and dependent children as mandated under the Lokpal Act. As per the rules notified under the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, every public servant shall file declaration, information and annual returns pertaining to assets and liabilities. Senior officials in the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said the government has received some representations from bureaucrats, especially women, expressing apprehensions over putting up the details of assets owned by their spouses and dependent children.
"The government is unlikely to make any changes in the rules. The details need to be filed before the extended deadline of December 31," a DoPT official said. The DoPT had in September notified the Public Servants (Furnishing of Information and Annual Return of Assets and Liabilities and the Limits for Exemption of Assets in Filing Returns) Amendment Rules, 2014, extending the date for the filing of returns to December 31.
As per the rules, every public servant shall file the returns of his assets and liabilities, including that of his or spouse and dependent family members, on March 31 every year on or before July 31 of that year.
For the current year, the last date for filing these returns was September 15, which has later extended to December-end. The declarations under the Lokpal Act are in addition to similar ones filed by the employees under various services rules.
All Group A, B and C employees are supposed to file a declaration under the new rules. There are about 22,95,374 employees in these three categories, as per the government's latest data. The DoPT has also issued new forms for filing these returns which have fields for mentioning details of cash in hand, bank deposits, investment in bonds, debentures, shares and units in companies or mutual funds, insurance policies, provident fund, personal loans and advance given to any person or entity, among others.
The employees need to declare motor vehicles, aircraft, yachts or ships, gold and silver jewellery and bullion possessed by them, their spouses and dependent children. However, the rules state that the competent authority may exempt a public servant from filing information in respect of any asset if its value does not exceed his or her four months' basic pay or Rs 2 lakh, whichever is higher.
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