Disclosures of Annual Confidential Reports (ACR) comes under Official Secret Act

[chanda_s]

Originally Posted by sngupta

Dear forum friends,
I have studied so many rules regulations and statuary enactments. I want to express a bad experience that 80% of officers do not having knowledge of rules regulations. You may conduct a survey how many officers knows the full ACR form. What is needed to fill up in ACR`s. I am the person who recently passed the CA (inter) exam and you may my ACR where the column of knowledge of rules and regulations will show you only very good. The person who is having very less knowledge is also getting very good. So many points I may present in this regards and If the contract emploment will start in Govt. what will be scenerion we will see.
Maharshi Rajnish was in favour of tranparency in sexual life but I am a supporter of transparency in economic life.
"In my opinion every financial activity must be transparent and open"

sngupta, it is not enough if you declare for yourself that you are knowledgeable and that the others are not. everyone's performance has to be evaluated by someone senior. and in ACRs evaluation is not in absolute numbers. it is something like grading where 90% to 100% falls in one grade irrespective of whether someone gets 90% or 100%.

sorry to say but i simply couldn't understand what the lines in red had in common with the subject of this thread.

Originally Posted by sngupta

For higher salaries, arbitrary working, differntial behaviour, using business sence, foreign visits, use of luxirious and many more every citizen is free to do his own business or profession having freedom for trade or employment under article 19 of constitution.
"Please do not allow the public post to use any one his own interest".

red colour again.
and i thought we were discussing ACRs!

i feel that the ACRs in the present form should not be subject to RTI . the individual employee should definitely have the option of inspection of this ACRs just like he can inspect his service book but a third party should not have the right to inspect his ACRs. And even if it is decided someday that ACRs should be made public, it should only be with prospective effect and not retrospective effect. when i had written ACRs of my subordinates i had the assurance that they would remain confidential.

and yes, it makes a lot of difference when an officer knows that his evaluation would be made public one day. anyone who had ever written an ACR would appreciate this fact.

[sngupta]

Ok Mr Chanda S,
When we are talkng about disclosure of ACR`s some one not of opinion that ACR`s may not be allowed to inspected to others. Here it is necessary to mention that article 14, 15, 16 of Constitution provides us right against arbitrary actions, differential treament. If the disclosure of ACR`s will not be allowed how any person can know the assessment of immediate superior in different situation. Whether he is giving good marks to a spoon or a knowledge base working. Some time may be one officer working very good but assessment of his superior is not allowed due assessment due to having another officer who is nearer relative of higher officer.
You mentioned that you want ACR written by you must be secret. Your this view shows that either you fear with your subordinate or you are not in position to say openly what you have done. We must work like a 'khuli kitab' and we must have a calibre to say openly what we have made earlier. So many our country person is saying that RTI may stop corruption. What is base of this thinking of all wisdom person. They knows that secrecy is root cause of curruption. Some recent examples may make you more clear.
1. Mrs kiran Bedi who is very senior officer could not be promoted on the post of police Commissioner New Delhi and she asked the reason for the same.
2. Our present foreign secretary promoted to overriding the chance of some other collegue and same have been challenged.
3. When one can be shown marks for his answer book and answer book of others then why we are not interested to open the evaluation made for working of any person. No dobout in school now so many parents complaining less marks to his child but teachers are bounded to open marks of every one. May be in future teachers will show their incapability to open marks.
Actually a very big subject is under discussion to our Govt that "Brain Drain"
I mentioning a story here that I was an operator before some days having capibilities than an operator but I was bound to obey to my seniors because I was not as per my capabilities. On passing the exam now I am Accounts Officer and so many persons who was boses at the time of my operator are having the same post. Now there is no futher exam in organisation. I took a chance to appear in CA exam and cleared the same. I am not claiming that I am only person who is intelligent. I mention only 80%. Secondly on sitting so many distance from me you reacted that the action of my immediate superior is correct. If persons like you says that Govt is running well and every officer is doing well then there is no need of RTI . You may think why the demand of TRANSPARENCY and ACCOUNTABILITY is increased day by day. The reason is that work of Govt officers is not transparent and non of the accountable in Govt. This is a discussion if you feel other wise please forget it. You are presenting your feeling and I am presenting my feeling. If we may think the views of others the problem will be solved and we may make a society with happiness.

[chanda_s]

Originally Posted by sngupta

You mentioned that you want ACR written by you must be secret. Your this view shows that either you fear with your subordinate or you are not in position to say openly what you have done. We must work like a 'khuli kitab' and we must have a calibre to say openly what we have made earlier.

There are finer things to life and being part of Govt than ‘fear’, ‘saying things openly’ etc. There are some concepts of man management which you will perhaps learn as you grow up in your organisation. There are things done in sheer good faith. There are concepts of trust between the boss and the employee which may be difficult for you to spot as you seem to be stuck with the notion that 80% of your officers are not knowledgeable. No guesses for what your subordinates-when you’ll have them, think of you; 80% or 20%. This trust is based on a lot of things. Once it is broken because of whatever reason, there will be chaos in the organisation.
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ACRs are written by senior officers who have seen the working of an employee from close quarters. There are a lot of things in the present form of ACRs that cannot really be quantified. Which means there is an ample scope for interpretation and personal preferences in good faith. Any sane thinking person will agree that whenever there is no quantification of parameters involved there is bound to be discontent among the affected people over performance evaluation as it is human tendency to feel that one is always correct and that others are always wrong. Perhaps you qualify to be more human than many on this count.
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Another point that should be realised is that adverse remarks in ACRs are invariably communicated to the employee. Otherwise the reporting authority himself would get a remark in his own ACR. When the Govt appointed someone as the reporting authority of a set of employees, one’s job is to report on the performance of all of them in that year confidentially. Yes that’s what the point is. The reporting officer is asked to do a job with a certain degree of confidentiality. And whatever report he submitted is with this assumption. That’s the trust between the Govt, the reporting authority and the employee. One can’t wish away this trust just like that.
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It’s a good idea to make transparent the entire process of performance evaluation. But then the reporting authorities have to be told this before hand. They would then be more diplomatic than forthcoming in their assessment. I as a responsible officer would never want my employees to think that I rate some of them higher and some lower. I would definitely try to help them come out of their limitations and improve the performance of the team as a whole. But when its time for performance evaluation any reporting authority would require the confidence that his report would not be made public. The depth of the issue can be understood only by understanding the complete process of performance evaluation in government, employer-employee relations in the Govt and the ACR form itself.
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I firmly believe that information is not an end in itself. Information is a means. An end is something that is determined by each according to his mentality. And ends need to justify the means.

[chanda_s]

The smilies in the above post are not intentional. sorry about that.

[smnislam]

The ACR of govt. servants is not on;y a document to avluate the performance of the officer but also a tool to find out areas where the officer needs to be developed and groomed and improve upon his or her shortcomings. In order to be effective it should be a mutual exercise between the reporting offficer and the reported officer. Therfore there is no question of hiding it .It should be a transparent exercise. If an offficer has 5 good gradings he /she may not be promoted to sAG grade without knowing the shortcomings or getting an oppurtunity to improve. The ACR should however not be made available to another person

[karira]

Originally Posted by smnislam

Agree totally.
If a subordinates performance is poor or certain areas are weak, he needs to be told and informed. Otherwise how will he ever know where or what areas need improvement.
Similarly, if his reports are good, he should also be told...this will motivate him further.
Why is a 3rd person interested at all in the evaluation process ?

[colnrkurup]

It is unlekely to have a clarification better than those given by Mr.smnislam and Mr.karira.

[smnislam]

yesterday i posted my views on the need for making the ACR known to the reported officer.The thread is now missing. can it be retrieved

[ganpat1956]

Dear smnislam,
I find your views under post no.35 in this thread and also in post no.36 quoted by karira. Are you refering to any other post of yours that is missing?

[sngupta]

Dear Shri S. Chanda,

Any sane thinking person will agree that whenever there is no quantification of parameters involved there is bound to be discontent among the affected people over performance evaluation as it is human tendency to feel that one is always correct and that others are always wrong. Perhaps you qualify to be more human than many on this count.

The views expressed by you is appreciable and correct view we need to use by every responsible officer. Especially quoted above. We need para meters to be fixed for ACR`s. Not only ACRS but also every thing so that we may work withour fear. This RTI will make the society more systemetic. May be RTI will be use full to save indian cirizen from unjustice.
Sir,
I want to express here a very good experience.
My son is studying in a school and it is the arrangment of school that we may go through the answer sheet on declaring the results. My son is topper of school and secured 96% in CBSE secondary exam. If this kind of person getting any mistake in evaluation of his answer sheets any one can surprise. Every time my son is noticing to evalutor and got marks corrected in school level exam. You think that a person of such exellency is not getting any attention of evalutors. This all are happening due to negligency. this is big problem that accountability is no more In our country after independence. If only accountability is being fixed in our coutry and if there are any agency to look to with accountability we may support the secrecy of ACR`s. There are so many weaknesses of human being which is creating so many hurdles in life of a common man so that we demanded RTI .
Sir, This is my ultimate view that ACR`s are only evaluation of the work of subordnates like the work of evaluator of exam, umpire or match referee in games and there is no problem to disclose it.
This is my slogan " Job with justification" This is real need of systemetic society.