CCS (Conduct) Rules, 1964

The Central Civil Services (Conduct) Rules, 1964, the CCS (Conduct) Rules, are the code of conduct for the central government’s civil servants: 25 numbered rules and seven lettered insertions that state what a government servant must do and must not do, from the duty of absolute integrity in Rule 3 down to the Rs. 2,000 ceiling on a gift to a Group C employee in Rule 13(3). They were made under the proviso to Article 309 of the Constitution and notified as S.O. 4177 on 12 December 1964, and they have the force of law.

The rules carry no penalty of their own. That is the single most useful fact about them: they define standards, and the CCS (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1965 supply the machinery that punishes a departure from those standards. A breach of any conduct rule is misconduct, it becomes the article of charge in a departmental inquiry, and a proven charge attracts a penalty from the Rule 11 schedule of the CCA Rules, up to dismissal.

For a reader of this site the chain does not stop at the penalty. Dismissal and removal forfeit pension and gratuity outright under Rule 41 of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021, and grave misconduct during service can reach a pension already in payment after retirement. The annual property return under Rule 18 is the return whose non-filing costs an otherwise clean officer a vigilance clearance, and the same return is the evidentiary foundation of a disproportionate assets prosecution.

This article maps every rule, states each obligation with its rupee figure and its amending notification, sets out the deemed-permission time limits that apply when a department does not answer a request, and traces the route from a breach through the disciplinary code to the loss of a pension.

Scope and the categories left out

The rules apply to every person appointed to a civil service or post in connection with the affairs of the Union, including a civilian in a Defence Service, and three categories are excluded by the proviso to Rule 1(3). A railway servant is out, as is a person holding a post in the Railway Board or under the administrative control of the Railway Board or the Financial Commissioner of Railways. A member of an All India Service is out, being governed instead by the All India Services (Conduct) Rules, 1968. And the President may, by general or special order, direct that the rules shall not apply to the holder of any post. The whole of Rule 1(3) also operates subject to the Indian Foreign Service (Conduct and Discipline) Rules, 1961.

A second proviso to Rule 1(3) is a fossil. It lifts Rules 4, 6, 7, 12 and 14, sub-rule (3) of Rule 15, Rule 16, sub-rules (1), (2) and (3) of Rule 18, and Rules 19, 20 and 21 from a government servant who holds a non-gazetted post in a port, dock, defence installation, work-charged public works establishment, irrigation or electric power establishment, mine, factory or field unit, and who draws pay not exceeding Rs. 500 a month. The pay threshold has never been revised, and the minimum pay of a central government employee has been Rs. 18,000 a month since 1 January 2016 under the 7th Central Pay Commission, so no serving employee falls inside it.

Rule 2(b) reaches further than the payroll. A government servant whose services are placed at the disposal of a company, corporation, organisation or local authority is deemed to remain a government servant for the purposes of these rules, notwithstanding that the salary is drawn from a source other than the Consolidated Fund of India. An officer on deputation therefore carries the Conduct Rules with them.

Rule 2(c) defines “members of family”, and the definition does the work in Rules 4, 13, 15, 16 and 18, each of which reaches conduct by a relative. It covers the spouse, whether residing with the government servant or not but excluding a spouse separated by a decree of a competent court; a son, daughter, step-son or step-daughter wholly dependent on the servant; and any other person related by blood or marriage to the servant or to the servant’s spouse and wholly dependent on the servant. Dependence, not relationship, is the operative test for everyone except the spouse.

Rule map

The rules run from Rule 1 to Rule 25 with seven lettered insertions. The table below is the whole code by marginal heading, and it is the fastest way to find the rule that governs a given question.

Two of the last three rules are often cited the wrong way round. Rule 23 is interpretation, and it sends any question on the meaning of the rules to the Government, whose decision is final. Rule 24 is delegation, and it allows the Government to make any power exercisable by it or by a Head of Department exercisable also by another officer, with the powers under Rule 23 and Rule 24 themselves carved out of the delegation.

Twenty-one duties under Rule 3

Rule 3(1) imposes twenty-one duties, not three. The first three are the ones a charge sheet quotes: every government servant shall at all times maintain absolute integrity, maintain devotion to duty, and do nothing which is unbecoming of a government servant. Notification G.S.R. 845(E) dated 27 November 2014 added clauses (iv) to (xxi), converting what had been a three-line moral core into a written values code.

The 2014 clauses require a government servant to commit to and uphold the supremacy of the Constitution and democratic values; to defend the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, public order, decency and morality; to maintain high ethical standards and honesty; to maintain political neutrality; to promote the principles of merit, fairness and impartiality; to maintain accountability, transparency and responsiveness to the public, particularly the weaker sections; to take decisions solely in the public interest and use public resources efficiently; to declare private interests relating to public duties and resolve any conflict in a way that protects the public interest; not to place themselves under a financial or other obligation to any individual or organisation which may influence the performance of official duties; not to misuse the post to derive financial or material benefit for themselves, their family or their friends; to make recommendations on merit alone; to maintain confidentiality where disclosure would prejudice the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, or friendly relations with foreign countries; and to discharge duties with the highest degree of professionalism.

Rule 3(2) adds four obligations about the exercise of authority. A government servant holding a supervisory post must take all possible steps to ensure the integrity and devotion to duty of everyone under their control, so a superior cannot look away from a subordinate’s misconduct. A government servant must not act otherwise than in their own best judgement except when acting under the direction of an official superior. The direction of an official superior shall ordinarily be in writing, oral directions are to be avoided as far as possible, and where an oral direction is unavoidable the superior must confirm it in writing immediately afterwards. A servant who receives an oral direction must seek written confirmation as early as possible, and the superior then has a duty to give it.

Two explanations to Rule 3 change how the rule bites. Explanation I deems a government servant who habitually fails to perform the assigned task within the time set, and to the quality expected, to be lacking in devotion to duty within the meaning of clause (ii). That provision matters because the Supreme Court held in Union of India v. J. Ahmed (1979) 2 SCC 286 that failure to attain the highest standard of efficiency, lack of leadership, inaptitude and indecisiveness are not misconduct, since misconduct imports an element of ill motive rather than an error of judgement. Explanation I answers the narrow case of habitual and persistent failure without disturbing the J. Ahmed line on ordinary inefficiency. Explanation II stops the rule being used the other way, providing that nothing in Rule 3(2)(ii) empowers a servant to evade responsibility by seeking instructions or approval from a superior where the scheme of distribution of powers does not require them.

Courtesy, government policies and sexual harassment

Three lettered rules inserted after Rule 3 carry duties that the original 1964 text did not contain. Rule 3-A, inserted by G.S.R. 355 dated 29 July 1995, bars a government servant from acting in a discourteous manner in the performance of official duties, and from adopting dilatory tactics or wilfully causing delay in the disposal of assigned work in dealings with the public.

Rule 3-B, inserted by the same 1995 notification, requires every government servant at all times to act in accordance with the government’s policies on the age of marriage, the preservation of the environment, and the protection of wildlife and cultural heritage, and to observe government policy on the prevention of crime against women.

Rule 3-C, inserted by G.S.R. 49 dated 7 March 1998, does two things. Sub-rule (1) bars a government servant from indulging in any act of sexual harassment of a woman at any workplace. Sub-rule (2) requires every government servant who is in charge of a workplace to take appropriate steps to prevent such harassment. The explanation defines sexual harassment to include physical contact and advances, a demand or request for sexual favours, sexually coloured remarks, showing pornography, and any other unwelcome physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct of a sexual nature, and treats an implied or explicit promise of preferential treatment, a threat of detrimental treatment, interference with work, or humiliating treatment likely to affect health or safety as circumstances that may amount to harassment. G.S.R. 823(E) dated 19 November 2014 widened the definition of workplace to reach hospitals, nursing homes, sports venues, any place visited in the course of employment including employer-provided transport, and a dwelling place or house. The rule sits alongside, and does not displace, the statutory machinery of the Internal Complaints Committee.

Political neutrality and association

Rule 5(1) bars a government servant from being a member of, or otherwise associated with, any political party or any organisation which takes part in politics, and from taking part in, subscribing in aid of, or assisting in any manner any political movement or activity. Rule 5(2) goes further and imposes a duty to try to prevent a member of the family from assisting any movement subversive of the Government as by law established, with a duty to report to the Government where the servant is unable to prevent it. Where a question arises whether a body is a political party or takes part in politics, Rule 5(3) makes the Government’s decision final.

Rule 5(4) bars canvassing, interference, the use of influence, and taking part in an election to any legislature or local authority. Two provisos preserve the servant’s own franchise and their official duties: a servant qualified to vote may vote but must give no indication of how they propose to vote or have voted, and a servant is not in breach merely by assisting in the conduct of an election as a legal duty. The explanation makes the display of an electoral symbol on the person, the vehicle or the residence an exercise of influence within the meaning of the sub-rule.

Rule 6 bars a government servant from joining or continuing as a member of an association whose objects or activities are prejudicial to the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, or to public order or morality. The rule is about the character of the association, not about union membership: participation in a recognised service association is dealt with under the separate machinery of the recognition rules, and Rule 9 carries an express proviso protecting an office-bearer’s bona fide representations on conditions of service.

Bar on strikes

Rule 7(ii) bars a government servant from resorting to, or in any way abetting, any form of strike, coercion or physical duress in connection with any matter pertaining to their own service or the service of any other government servant. Rule 7(i) separately bars participation in a demonstration which is prejudicial to the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality, or which involves contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence. The words “coercion or physical duress” were inserted by amendment; the original 1964 text stopped at “strike”.

The rule text does not itself define a strike, and the familiar list of substitutes is not in it. Mass casual leave, a deliberate go-slow, a sit-down, a pen-down and a rule-book agitation are treated as strikes through departmental instructions issued under the rule rather than through Rule 7 itself, which is why a charge sheet in such a case pleads the instruction alongside the rule.

The constitutional position is settled. In T.K. Rangarajan v. Government of Tamil Nadu (2003) 6 SCC 581 the Supreme Court held that government employees have no fundamental right, no statutory or legal right, and no moral right to go on strike, and declined to interfere with the mass dismissal of striking Tamil Nadu employees on that ground. Participation in a strike is therefore misconduct under Rule 7 and is not protected by Article 19(1)(c), which secures the right to form associations but not a right to strike.

Press, criticism and evidence

Rule 8(1) bars a government servant, except with the previous sanction of the Government, from owning wholly or in part, or conducting or participating in the editing or management of, any newspaper, other periodical publication or electronic media. Rule 8(2) exempts the publication of a book or participation in public media in the bona fide discharge of official duties, and Rule 8(3) requires a servant who publishes a book or participates in public media to make it clear at all times that the views expressed are their own and not those of the Government.

Rule 9 governs criticism. A government servant may not make any statement of fact or opinion, whether in a radio broadcast, a telecast through any electronic media, a document published in their own name or anonymously or pseudonymously or in another person’s name, a communication to the press, or any public utterance, which has the effect of adverse criticism of a current or recent policy or action of the Central Government or a State Government, or which is capable of embarrassing relations between the Centre and a State or between the Centre and a foreign State. Two carve-outs apply. A statement made in an official capacity or in the due performance of assigned duties is outside the rule entirely. And a proviso inserted by G.S.R. 355 dated 29 July 1995 protects the bona fide expression of views by an office-bearer of a trade union or association of government servants, for the purpose of safeguarding or improving the conditions of service of those servants, in the case of the categories specified in the second proviso to Rule 1(3).

Rule 10 requires the previous sanction of the Government before a government servant gives evidence in connection with any enquiry conducted by any person, committee or authority, and bars a servant who has been given that sanction from criticising the policy or action of the Central Government or a State Government while giving it. Three kinds of evidence are outside the rule: evidence before an authority appointed by the Government, Parliament or a State Legislature; evidence in a judicial enquiry; and evidence at a departmental enquiry ordered by an authority subordinate to the Government.

Communication of information under Rule 11

Rule 11 is an affirmative duty first and a prohibition second, which is the reverse of how it is usually described. As substituted by G.S.R. 376 dated 22 October 2005, it requires every government servant, in the performance of their duties in good faith, to communicate information to a person in accordance with the Right to Information Act, 2005 and the rules made under it. The rule was rewritten precisely because the pre-2005 version, which was a flat bar on disclosure, could not stand alongside a statutory right of access.

The proviso carries the prohibition. Except in accordance with a general or special order of the Government, or in the performance in good faith of assigned duties, a government servant shall not communicate directly or indirectly any official document or any part of it, or classified information, to any government servant or any other person to whom they are not authorised to communicate it. The proviso is the conduct-rules counterpart of the Official Secrets Act, 1923, and unauthorised disclosure is charged under it.

Subscriptions, gifts and dowry

Rule 12 bars a government servant, except with the previous sanction of the Government or the prescribed authority, from asking for or accepting contributions to, or otherwise associating themselves with the raising of, any funds or other collections in cash or in kind, for any object whatsoever. The words “any object whatsoever” mean the rule reaches a charitable collection as much as a commercial one.

Rule 13(1) begins with a flat prohibition: save as the rules provide, no government servant shall accept, or permit a family member or any other person acting on their behalf to accept, any gift. The explanation defines a gift to include free transport, boarding, lodging or other service, or any other pecuniary advantage, when provided by a person other than a near relative or personal friend having no official dealings with the servant. Note (1) takes a casual meal, a lift or other social hospitality out of the definition. Note (2) requires a servant to avoid lavish or frequent hospitality from any individual, firm or organisation having official dealings with them.

Two ceilings then operate on different occasions.

The Rule 13(2) figures were substituted by G.S.R. 149(E) dated 4 March 2014, replacing much older limits. The Rule 13(3) figures were substituted by G.S.R. 531(E) dated 29 July 2019, which raised them from Rs. 1,500 for Group A and Group B and Rs. 500 for Group C and Group D, and removed the Group D entry altogether. The Department of Personnel and Training circulated the 2019 amendment by Office Memorandum No. 11013/02/2019-Estt.A-III dated 6 August 2019, which records the purpose as bringing the CCS (Conduct) Rules 1964, the All India Services (Conduct) Rules 1968 and the Foreign Contribution (Acceptance or Retention of Gifts or Presentations) Rules 2012 into line with one another.

The same 2019 notification rewrote Rule 13(4). A government servant who is a member of an Indian delegation or otherwise receives a gift from a foreign dignitary no longer works to a rupee cap in the Conduct Rules; acceptance and retention are regulated by the Foreign Contribution (Acceptance or Retention of Gifts or Presentations) Rules 2012, as amended from time to time. Rule 13(5) is untouched and absolute in one direction: a government servant shall not accept any gift from a foreign firm which is contracting with the Government of India, or with which the servant has had, has, or is likely to have official dealings.

Rule 13-A, inserted by S.O. 846 dated 28 February 1976, bars a government servant from giving or taking or abetting the giving or taking of dowry, and from demanding dowry directly or indirectly from the parent or guardian of a bride or bridegroom. The explanation adopts the definition of dowry in the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961, so the disciplinary liability and the criminal liability turn on the same meaning.

Public demonstrations in honour of a servant

Rule 14 bars a government servant, except with the previous sanction of the Government, from receiving any complimentary or valedictory address, accepting any testimonial, or attending any meeting or entertainment held in their own honour or in the honour of another government servant. Two exceptions are written into the rule: a farewell entertainment of a substantially private and informal character on retirement, transfer, or a person recently quitting government service, and the acceptance of simple and inexpensive entertainments arranged by public bodies or institutions.

The note under Rule 14 targets the mechanics of the collection rather than the event. It forbids the exercise of pressure or influence of any sort on a government servant to induce a subscription towards a private or informal farewell, and forbids the collection of subscriptions from Class III or Class IV employees under any circumstances for the entertainment of a servant who is not Class III or Class IV.

Private trade, outside employment and government accommodation

Rule 15(1) bars a government servant, except with the previous sanction of the Government, from six things: engaging directly or indirectly in any trade or business; negotiating for or undertaking any other employment; holding an elective office, or canvassing for a candidate for an elective office, in any body whether incorporated or not; canvassing in support of an insurance agency, commission agency or similar business owned or managed by a family member; taking part, otherwise than in official duties, in the registration, promotion or management of any bank or company registered under the Companies Act or of any co-operative society for commercial purposes; and participating in a sponsored media programme, a media programme commissioned by government media but produced by a private agency, or a privately produced media programme including a video magazine. Participation in a programme produced or commissioned by government media in an official capacity needs no permission.

Rule 15(2) permits five activities without sanction: honorary work of a social or charitable nature; occasional work of a literary, artistic or scientific character; participation in sport as an amateur; non-elective participation in the registration, promotion or management of a literary, scientific or charitable society, club or similar organisation registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860; and non-elective participation in a co-operative society registered for the substantial benefit of government servants. Two conditions attach: the servant must stop if the Government so directs, and in the case of a society or a co-operative society the official duties must not suffer and the servant must report the details of the participation within one month of taking part.

Rule 15(3) requires a government servant to report to the Government if any member of the family is engaged in a trade or business, or owns or manages an insurance agency or commission agency. Rule 15(4) bars the acceptance of any fee for work done for a private or public body or a private person without the sanction of the prescribed authority, unless a general or special order provides otherwise, and adopts the definition of “fee” in Fundamental Rule 9(6-A). The distinction between a fee and an honorarium matters, because the two are sanctioned by different authorities and treated differently for tax.

Rule 15-A, inserted by G.S.R. 367 dated 31 August 1996, deals with government accommodation. Sub-rule (1) bars a government servant from sub-letting, leasing or otherwise allowing occupation by any other person of government accommodation allotted to them. Sub-rule (2) requires the servant to vacate within the time limit prescribed by the allotting authority once the allotment is cancelled. Unauthorised retention is separately recoverable as damages, and it is a common ground for withholding dues on retirement through the no demand certificate.

Investment, lending and borrowing

Rule 16(1) bars a government servant from speculating in any stock, share or other investment, with a proviso saving occasional investments made through a stock broker or other person duly authorised, licensed, or holding a certificate of registration under the relevant law. The explanation is what gives the rule its edge: the frequent purchase or sale, or both, of shares, securities or other investments is deemed to be speculation. Frequency, not the size of the holding, is the statutory test.

Rule 16(2) bars a government servant from making, or permitting a family member or any person acting on their behalf to make, any investment likely to embarrass or influence them in the discharge of official duties, and deems the purchase of shares out of a quota reserved for directors of companies or their friends and associates to be such an investment. A separate limb bars a servant connected with the decision-making process on the pricing of an initial or follow-on public offering by a central public sector enterprise from applying for shares in that offering, whether personally, through a family member, or through another person. Rule 16(3) makes the Government’s decision final on whether a transaction falls within sub-rule (1) or sub-rule (2).

Rule 16(4) governs lending and borrowing. Save in the ordinary course of business with a bank or a public limited company, a government servant may not lend, borrow or deposit money, as principal or agent, to, from or with any person, firm or private limited company within the local limits of their authority or with whom they are likely to have official dealings, or otherwise place themselves under a pecuniary obligation to such a person; and may not lend money to any person at interest or in a manner where a return in money or in kind is charged or paid. Provisos permit a purely temporary interest-free loan of a small amount to or from a relative or personal friend, a credit account with a bona fide tradesman, an advance of pay to a private employee, and any transaction entered into with the previous sanction of the Government. Where a servant is appointed or transferred to a post that would put them in breach of sub-rule (2) or sub-rule (4), Rule 16(4)(ii) requires an immediate report to the prescribed authority.

The annual intimation on securities transactions is administrative rather than a numbered sub-rule, and it sits alongside Rule 18. Office Memorandum F. No. 11013/6/2018-Estt.A-III dated 7 February 2019 sets it: where the total transactions in shares, securities, debentures and mutual fund schemes exceed six months’ basic pay in a calendar year, an intimation is due to the prescribed authority by 31 January of the following year. It replaced the flat limits in Office Memorandum No. 11013/6/91-Estt.(A) dated 8 April 1992, which had set Rs. 50,000 for Group A and Group B and Rs. 25,000 for Group C and Group D. Paragraph 3 of the 2019 memorandum adds the point most often missed: shares and securities are movable property for Rule 18(3), so a single transaction above two months’ basic pay is separately reportable within a month, and the two thresholds operate together rather than in the alternative. Basic pay is not defined for either purpose, though the natural reading against the pay matrix is the cell value, excluding dearness allowance and every other allowance, so the threshold rises with each increment and with each pay revision.

Insolvency and habitual indebtedness

Rule 17 requires a government servant to so manage their private affairs as to avoid habitual indebtedness or insolvency, and to report the full facts forthwith to the Government where any legal proceeding is instituted for the recovery of a debt due from them or for adjudging them insolvent. The reporting duty is triggered by the institution of the proceeding, not by its outcome.

The note under Rule 17 reverses the ordinary burden of proof. Where indebtedness or insolvency is established, it is for the government servant to prove that it resulted from circumstances which, with the exercise of ordinary diligence, they could not have foreseen or over which they had no control, and that it did not proceed from extravagant or dissipated habits. Failure to discharge that burden makes the indebtedness itself the misconduct.

Property returns under Rule 18

Rule 18 makes a government servant’s assets visible to the department, and it is the rule that underpins the detection of disproportionate wealth. It carries five sub-rules and one lettered companion.

Two thresholds carry dates. The two months’ basic pay figure in Rule 18(3) was substituted by G.S.R. 370(E) dated 9 May 2011, replacing a flat rupee test. The parallel All India Services notification of four days earlier, G.S.R. 363(E) dated 5 May 2011, records the figure it displaced on that side: “Rs.15,000/-” in Rule 16(4), and “fifteen thousand rupees or one sixth of the total annual emoluments received by the member of the Service from the Government, whichever is less” in Explanation I. That 2011 notification is the last substantive amendment to the text of Rule 18. The Rules have been amended since, most recently by G.S.R. 531(E) dated 29 July 2019, but that notification amended Rule 3 and left Rule 18 alone, so everything that has changed about the return since 2011, including its online filing and its vigilance consequence, has changed through executive instructions issued under the rule rather than through the rule itself.

The distinction between previous knowledge and previous sanction decides what a servant actually has to wait for. In the ordinary Rule 18(2) case, where the counterparty has no official dealings with the servant, all that is required is prior intimation, and the transaction may proceed once the intimation has been given. Previous sanction is required only where the counterparty has official dealings, or where Rule 18-A applies because the property is outside India or the other party is a foreigner.

Deemed permission when a request is not answered

A request for permission under the Conduct Rules is deemed to have been granted if the department does not answer within the prescribed period. Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 11013/2/88-Estt.(A) dated 7 July 1988 fixes the periods, counted from the date the request is received, and supersedes a 1978 order that many departmental notes still cite.

The Rule 19(1) entry comes from the rule and not from the 1988 order. A proviso inserted by G.S.R. 355 dated 29 July 1995 states that where no sanction is received within three months from the date the Government receives the request, the servant is free to assume that permission has been granted. A statutory proviso of 1995 displaces the shorter administrative figure of six weeks that the 1988 order had carried for the same rule.

The deeming attaches to permission, so it has work to do only where the rule actually requires sanction. In the ordinary Rule 18(2) case, where the rule requires only previous knowledge, there is no permission to be deemed. A servant relying on the deeming provision should hold a dated acknowledgement, because the period runs from receipt of the request and not from its dispatch.

Vindication, canvassing, marriage, intoxicants and child labour

Rule 19(1) bars a government servant, except with the previous sanction of the Government, from having recourse to any court or to the press for the vindication of any official act which has been the subject of adverse criticism or a defamatory attack. Rule 19(2) preserves the servant’s freedom to vindicate their private character or an act done in a private capacity, subject to a report to the prescribed authority about the action taken.

Rule 20 bars a government servant from bringing, or attempting to bring, any political or other outside influence to bear on a superior authority to further their own interests in a matter pertaining to their service. A representation routed through a member of a legislature about a posting, a transfer or a place on a departmental promotion committee panel is the classic breach.

Rule 21 restricts marriage. Sub-rule (1) bars a government servant from contracting a marriage with a person having a spouse living. Sub-rule (2) bars a government servant having a spouse living from contracting another marriage. The proviso allows the Central Government to permit such a marriage only where it is satisfied both that the marriage is permissible under the personal law applicable to the servant and to the other party, and that there are other grounds for permitting it; both conditions must be met. Sub-rule (3) requires a government servant who marries a person who is not of Indian nationality to intimate the fact to the Government forthwith.

Rule 22 requires a government servant to strictly abide by any law relating to intoxicating drinks or drugs in force in the area where they happen to be; not to be under the influence of any intoxicating drink or drug during the course of duty, and to take due care that performance of duty is not affected by such influence at any time; to refrain from consuming any intoxicating drink or drug in a public place; not to appear in a public place in a state of intoxication; and not to use any intoxicating drink or drug to excess. The explanation defines a public place as any place or premises, including a conveyance, to which the public have or are permitted to have access, whether on payment or otherwise.

Rule 22-A, inserted by G.S.R. 342 dated 23 October 1999, is one sentence long: no government servant shall employ to work any child below the age of 14 years. It reaches domestic employment, which is where the rule is enforced in practice.

Enforcement through the disciplinary code

A breach of any conduct rule is misconduct, and it is punished under the CCS (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1965. The alleged breach becomes the article of charge in the charge sheet; the inquiry runs under Rule 14 of the CCA Rules where a major penalty is contemplated and under Rule 16 where a minor penalty is; the government servant is given the reasonable opportunity that Article 311(2) guarantees; and a proven charge attracts a penalty from the Rule 11 schedule, running from censure through withholding of increments and reduction in rank to compulsory retirement, removal and dismissal. A servant may be placed under suspension while the inquiry runs, drawing subsistence allowance, and may appeal under the appeal, review and revision provisions of the same rules, with a further remedy before the Central Administrative Tribunal.

The gravest breaches connect the Conduct Rules to the criminal law. Corruption, the acceptance of illegal gratification and the possession of assets disproportionate to known sources of income are breaches of the Rule 3 duty of absolute integrity and separately offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, and a vigilance case of that kind engages the Central Vigilance Commission. The two proceedings run in parallel, because a departmental inquiry proves misconduct on the preponderance of probabilities while a prosecution must prove the offence beyond reasonable doubt.

Consequences that do not need an inquiry

A conduct-rule default can cost an officer a career opportunity without any disciplinary proceeding at all, and the property return is where this happens most often. Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 104/33/2024-AVD-IA dated 9 October 2024 lists failure to file the previous year’s immovable property return by 31 January among the grounds on which vigilance clearance shall be denied, and a single denial blocks empanelment for a senior post, deputation, posting to a sensitive assignment and foreign training. The same order carries an identical list for All India Services officers, with the conduct-rule reference changed to Rule 16 of the 1968 rules.

The denial is administrative and immediate. It requires no charge sheet, no inquiry officer and no finding, and it is not a penalty within the Rule 11 schedule of the CCA Rules, so it does not attract Article 311(2). The default is separately a breach of Rule 18 and therefore misconduct that can be charged, but in the ordinary case the clearance consequence is the whole of the consequence, and it is cured by filing the return.

Effect on pension and gratuity

A breach of the Conduct Rules reaches the pension through the penalty, not directly. Dismissal and removal from service forfeit pension and gratuity outright under Rule 41 of the CCS (Pension) Rules 2021, leaving only a compassionate allowance that the competent authority may grant in a deserving case, and dismissal or removal is the normal outcome where a charge of corruption or of assets disproportionate to known income is proved. Compulsory retirement, by contrast, is a penalty under the same schedule that does not forfeit pension: it carries a compulsory retirement pension of not less than two-thirds of the pension otherwise admissible.

Retirement does not close the file. Grave misconduct or negligence during service, which is what a breach of these rules amounts to, can lead to the withholding or withdrawal of a pension already in payment under Rule 8 of the CCS (Pension) Rules 2021, and gratuity can be withheld and recovered separately under the recovery provisions. The Rule 18 property returns are what make a disproportionate-assets case provable years after the event, because the return filed each 31 January is a dated admission of what the servant held at that time.

Comparison with the All India Services (Conduct) Rules 1968

The two codes cover the same ground under different numbers, and an officer who moves between the frameworks has to renumber their obligations. The table below sets out the differences that matter in practice.

The alignment of the gift limits was deliberate. Office Memorandum No. 11013/02/2019-Estt.A-III dated 6 August 2019 records that the amendment was made to bring the CCS (Conduct) Rules 1964, the All India Services (Conduct) Rules 1968 and the Foreign Contribution (Acceptance or Retention of Gifts or Presentations) Rules 2012 into uniformity, which is why the same rupee figures now appear in all three.

Amendment history

The rules have been amended more than forty times since 1964. The notifications below are the ones that changed an obligation a serving employee has to meet today.

No notification has amended the text of the rules since 29 July 2019. Everything that has changed in the six years since has changed through executive instructions issued under the rules, of which the 9 October 2024 vigilance clearance order is the most consequential.

Related Articles

• CCS (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1965
• Departmental inquiry
• Charge sheet and articles of charge
• Major and minor penalty proceedings
• Appeal, review and revision under the CCS (CCA) Rules
• Misconduct
• Article 311 of the Constitution
• Immovable property return
• Disproportionate assets
• Vigilance clearance
• Prevention of Corruption Act
• Central Vigilance Commission
• Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act
• Right to Information Act
• Sexual harassment of women at the workplace
• Internal Complaints Committee
• All India Services (Conduct) Rules, 1968
• All India Services
• Central Administrative Tribunal
• Suspension
• Subsistence allowance
• Dismissal and removal from service
• Compulsory retirement
• Premature retirement
• Reduction in rank
• Withholding of pension
• Withholding and recovery from gratuity
• Compassionate allowance
• CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021
• Central government pension
• Fundamental Rules and Supplementary Rules
• Honorarium and fee
• No demand certificate
• Deputation in central government
• Annual performance appraisal report
• Departmental promotion committee
• Resignation from government service
• Technical resignation
• Casual leave
• Pay matrix
• Central government employees in India
• Department of Personnel and Training

External references

• Department of Personnel and Training: CCS (Conduct) Rules, 1964 (consolidated text)
• Institute of Secretariat Training and Management: rule-wise index of the CCS (Conduct) Rules
• Department of Personnel and Training: circulars and orders
• Central Vigilance Commission
• The Gazette of India
• Department of Personnel and Training: CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965

References

1. Central Civil Services (Conduct) Rules, 1964, made under the proviso to Article 309 of the Constitution and notified as S.O. 4177 on 12 December 1964: Rule 1(3) (application and the excluded categories), Rule 2(b) and 2(c) (government servant and members of family), and Rule 3 (the twenty-one duties, the supervisory duty, the written-direction rule, and Explanations I and II).
2. Notification G.S.R. 845(E) dated 27 November 2014, substituting Rule 3(1) to add clauses (iv) to (xxi); G.S.R. 823(E) dated 19 November 2014, widening the definition of workplace in Rule 3-C; and G.S.R. 149(E) dated 4 March 2014, substituting the occasion gift limits in Rule 13(2).
3. Notification G.S.R. 531(E) dated 29 July 2019, substituting Rule 13(3) at Rs. 5,000 for Group A and Group B and Rs. 2,000 for Group C and substituting Rule 13(4); circulated by Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 11013/02/2019-Estt.A-III dated 6 August 2019.
4. Notification G.S.R. 355 dated 29 July 1995, inserting Rules 3-A and 3-B, the trade union proviso to Rule 9, and the three-month deemed-permission proviso to Rule 19(1); G.S.R. 49 dated 7 March 1998, inserting Rule 3-C; G.S.R. 342 dated 23 October 1999, inserting Rule 22-A; and G.S.R. 376 dated 22 October 2005, substituting Rule 11.
5. Notification G.S.R. 367 dated 31 August 1996, inserting Rule 15-A and amending Rules 13, 15 and 16; and G.S.R. 370(E) dated 9 May 2011, substituting the movable property threshold in Rule 18(3) with two months’ basic pay.
6. Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 11013/2/88-Estt.(A) dated 7 July 1988, fixing the deemed-permission periods of 30 days for Rules 8(2), 13(4) and 18(2) and 60 days for Rule 18-A.
7. Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 104/33/2024-AVD-IA dated 9 October 2024, listing the grounds on which vigilance clearance is denied, including failure to file the previous year’s immovable property return by 31 January.
8. Central Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1965, Rule 11 (penalties), Rule 14 (major penalty inquiry) and Rule 16 (minor penalty procedure); and Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 2021, Rule 8 (withholding or withdrawal of pension) and Rule 41 (forfeiture on dismissal or removal, and compassionate allowance).
9. All India Services (Conduct) Rules, 1968, Rule 16 (movable, immovable and valuable property) and Rule 16-A (property outside India), read with the All India Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1969.
10. Union of India v. J. Ahmed (1979) 2 SCC 286, on the limits of misconduct; and T.K. Rangarajan v. Government of Tamil Nadu (2003) 6 SCC 581, holding that government employees have no fundamental, statutory, legal or moral right to strike.