Jammu and Kashmir govt develops online portal to streamline departmental action cases

Jammu and Kashmir government has developed an online portal for Regular Departmental Action (RDA) cases initiated against public servants and to streamline the procedure laid down for conducting departmental proceedings and to monitor progress for enforcing adherence to the prescribed timelines.

A circular issued by General Administration Department reads: The portal shall contain electronic data related to RDA cases in digitized format with a unique ID which shall be accessible to all the concerned departments/disciplinary authorities, with an overall real time monitoring of the cases by the General Administration Department.

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The portal https://rdajk.govin also provides a window for referral of cases from Anti-Corruption Bureau to the General Administration Department and their further referral to the concerned Departments.

It also provides a window for uploading RDA cases initiated by the Departments on their own. The portal shall work as a channel for communication w.r.t. RDA cases between the GAD and the Departments, as also between GAD and ACB.

Notably, the government had issued detailed guidelines for institution of Regular Departmental Action and timelines from time to time, latest in this series issued vide Circular No. 24-JK(GAD) of 2021 dated 17.07.2021.

However, Government says it has been noticed that the guidelines as well as the timelines are not being followed by Departments, resulting into protracted delay in conclusion of the cases.

The delay in finalization of departmental proceedings leads to undue advantage/ harassment to the charged official: such delays on one hand help the guilty official(s) in evading penalty, while unwarranted delays prolong the agony of the official(s), against whom proceedings may not sustain and is/are finally exonerated, it reads.

In view of the circular issued, GAD has asked issued instructions to departments to nominate a Nodal Officer, not below the rank of Deputy Secretary, who shall be responsible for uploading of cases and their progress at various stages of proceedings, regular monitoring of the cases, liaisoning with the General Administration Department, besides other issues relating to RDAs.

Each Department shall be provided with two login IDs; one for Nodal Officer and another for the Disciplinary Authority. The Disciplinary Authority in the Department shall have an access for monitoring of the cases on real time basis, it reads.

“The legacy data of all the RDA cases received from the Investigating Agencies/GAD as well as the cases initiated by the Departments on their own, which are pending with the departments as on date, shall be uploaded on the portal within a timeframe of one month positively, from the date of issuance of this Circular,” circular added.