Vigilance Clearance

Vigilance clearance is an administrative certification by the cadre controlling authority of a central government employee that, as on a stated date, the employee’s vigilance record discloses none of a defined list of disqualifying circumstances. It is not a statutory rule. No provision of the CCS (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1965, the CCS (Conduct) Rules, 1964, or the Central Vigilance Commission Act, 2003 creates it; it is an executive instruction regime, currently governed by Office Memorandum No. 104/33/2024-AVD-IA dated 9 October 2024 issued by the Department of Personnel and Training.

The single most consequential fact about vigilance clearance is that there are two regimes, and they say opposite things. The general regime, in the 2024 Office Memorandum, denies clearance on twelve grounds, one of which is the currency of a penalty already imposed. The promotion regime, running from the Supreme Court’s decision in Union of India v. K.V. Jankiraman through Office Memorandum No. 22011/4/91-Estt.(A) dated 14 September 1992 to Office Memorandum No. 22034/4/2012-Estt.(D) dated 2 November 2012, denies clearance on three grounds only, and expressly states that clearance will not be denied once a penalty has been imposed. An employee censured in 2024 is therefore barred from empanelment and deputation for years, and must still be considered for promotion on the same day, with the censure disclosed to the departmental promotion committee as a fact going to suitability. Ministries confuse the two often enough that the Department of Personnel and Training issued a clarification on 6 February 2025 telling them not to apply the 2024 guidelines to promotion at all.

The practical bite of a refusal is wide. Vigilance clearance gates empanelment, every deputation and its extension, appointment to a sensitive post, confirmation in service, ex-India study leave, retirement on voluntary retirement, and post-retirement commercial employment. A refusal is rarely accompanied by reasons and is usually discovered when a posting does not come through. Because the regime is executive and not statutory, the grounds are exhaustively listed and a refusal outside them is challengeable before the Central Administrative Tribunal.

This article sets out what the certification is and who issues it, the ten occasions on which it is required, the twelve grounds of denial in paragraph 8 of the 2024 instruction, the three-year and five-year bar that follows the currency of a penalty, the separate and much narrower rule that governs promotion, the immovable property return linkage that catches the largest number of employees, the effect of a pending case on pension and gratuity at retirement, and the remedies against a wrongful refusal.

Legal character and the source of the power

Vigilance clearance has no parent statute. The Central Vigilance Commission traces the practice to paragraph 5 of the Government Resolution dated 11 February 1964 that created the Commission, under which it advises ministries, departments and undertakings on all matters pertaining to the maintenance of integrity in administration, including vigilance inputs on the antecedents of public servants. Chapter XI, paragraph 11.2(1) of the Vigilance Manual (updated 2021) records that this advice “in common parlance is often referred to as ‘Vigilance Clearance’”. Section 8(1)(h) of the Central Vigilance Commission Act, 2003 gives the Commission superintendence over the vigilance administration of the ministries of the central government, with a proviso barring directions on policy matters, and Section 8(1)(f) gives it the function of reviewing the progress of applications pending for sanction of prosecution under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.

The Commission does not grant the clearance. Paragraph 11.2(6) of the same chapter is explicit: “vigilance clearance as such is to be granted only by the concerned cadre authorities”, and the Commission considers the vigilance profile furnished by those authorities, signed by the Chief Vigilance Officer. The Commission enters the picture on a reference, principally for empanelment of a batch, for board level positions in public sector enterprises, and for senior statutory and quasi-judicial appointments.

That the regime is executive matters to an employee contesting a refusal. An executive instruction binds the administration and creates a legitimate expectation of consistent application, and a refusal on a ground not listed in the instruction is arbitrary on ordinary administrative-law principles. The Department of Personnel and Training has said so itself. Paragraph 1 of Office Memorandum No. 22034/4/2012-Estt.(D) dated 2 November 2012 records that withholding clearance from an employee who is not under suspension, who has not been issued a charge sheet, and against whom no prosecution for a criminal charge is pending “may not be legally tenable”.

Occasions requiring clearance

Paragraph 7 of Office Memorandum No. 104/33/2024-AVD-IA dated 9 October 2024 lists ten occasions for members of the Central Civil Services and holders of central civil posts.

For All India Services officers, paragraph 2 adds an eleventh occasion, inter-cadre transfer and extension of it, and qualifies voluntary retirement as applying where the central government is the competent authority.

The 2024 list is more than three times the 2022 list. The consolidated instruction dated 28 September 2022, and before it Office Memorandum No. 11012/11/2007-Estt.(A) dated 14 December 2007, listed three occasions only: empanelment, any deputation for which clearance is necessary, and appointments to sensitive posts and assignments to training programmes. Confirmation, ex-India study leave, voluntary retirement, post-retirement commercial employment and voluntary repatriation were all brought in on 9 October 2024, and deputation was extended to cover extensions.

Several other occasions are governed by their own instructions rather than by the 2024 memorandum, and the differences are substantive.

The twelve grounds of denial

Paragraph 8 of Office Memorandum No. 104/33/2024-AVD-IA dated 9 October 2024 states that vigilance clearance “shall be denied on the following grounds”. The identical list appears at paragraph 3 for All India Services officers, with the conduct rules reference changed to Rule 16 of the AIS (Conduct) Rules, 1968.

Two features of this list are worth naming precisely, because both were fought over before they were written down.

The first is that a mere allegation is not a ground. Limb 8(a)(I) requires that the vigilance angle be prima facie established on at least a preliminary inquiry, conducted as stipulated in paragraph 6 of the companion Office Memorandum No. 104/76/2024-AVD-IA of the same date, or on information already held by the Government. Limb 8(a)(II) then puts two clocks on the department and both run in the employee’s favour. If the preliminary inquiry is not started within three months of the complaint, clearance is to be granted. If it is started but not finished within three months, clearance is to be granted. The 2022 text carried only the second of these; the first, which stops a department from parking a complaint indefinitely without acting on it, is new in 2024.

The second is that sanction alone is not a ground, though it was until 2024. The 2022 instruction denied clearance where sanction for investigation or prosecution had been granted, full stop. Limb 8(g) now bites only when sanction has been granted and the case is pending in the trial court, which is to say after a court has taken cognizance. Limb 8(e) similarly requires the charge sheet to be served within three months of the sanction or the institution order. The effect is to align the vigilance clearance regime, at least partially, with the charge-sheet threshold the Supreme Court set for the sealed cover.

Currency of penalty

Paragraph 8(l) of the 2024 instruction reads:

In cases where a minor penalty has been imposed on an officer, vigilance clearance will not be granted for a period of three year after the currency of the penalty. In cases where a major penalty has been imposed on an officer, vigilance clearance will not be granted for a period of five years after the currency of the punishment. After the currency of the penalty, the performance of the officer should be closely watched and vigilance clearance will continue to be denied if the name of the officer is included in the Agreed List or ODI List.

Three points follow, and each one costs employees years of career opportunity.

The clock starts after the penalty has finished running, not when it is imposed. “Currency” is the period the penalty itself operates. A withholding of increments for two years under Rule 11(iv) of the CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965 has a currency of two years; a reduction to a lower stage or a lower post for three years has a currency of three. The three-year or five-year bar runs after that. A two-year withholding of increment therefore keeps an employee out of empanelment and deputation for roughly five years in total, and a three-year reduction in rank for roughly eight. The distinction between a minor and a major penalty does not merely change the length of the bar; it changes the length of the penalty that the bar is added to.

The bar hardened in 2024. The 2007, 2011 and 2022 texts all read that clearance “will not normally be granted” for the stated period, and that during the period the officer’s performance should be closely watched. Dropping “normally” converted a presumption into a rule. The 2024 text also added a tail that has no time limit at all: after the three or five years expire, clearance continues to be denied while the officer’s name is on the Agreed List or the list of officers of doubtful integrity, and an entry on the second of those lists runs for three years.

The instructions do not say what the currency of a censure is. A censure under Rule 11(i) of the CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965 is a minor penalty with no duration: it is recorded and it operates from the date of the order. Whether the three-year bar in limb 8(l) runs from the date of the censure order, or has nothing to attach to and so does not apply, is unsettled in the instructions, and departments differ. This affects a very large number of employees, because censure is by a wide margin the most frequently imposed penalty in the central services.

None of this applies to promotion. Paragraph 10 of Office Memorandum No. 22034/4/2012-Estt.(D) dated 2 November 2012 closes with a sentence that is often overlooked: “After the disciplinary proceedings are concluded and penalty is imposed, vigilance clearance will not be denied. The details of the penalty imposed are to be conveyed to the DPC.” The penalty is evidence going to suitability, weighed by the committee. It is not a bar on clearance.

Promotion, the sealed cover, and the charge-sheet threshold

Vigilance clearance for promotion may be refused in three circumstances and no more. Paragraph 1 of Office Memorandum No. 22034/4/2012-Estt.(D) dated 2 November 2012 lists them: government servants under suspension; government servants in respect of whom a charge sheet has been issued and the disciplinary proceedings are pending; and government servants in respect of whom prosecution for a criminal charge is pending. These are the same three conditions that trigger the sealed cover procedure under paragraph 2 of Office Memorandum No. 22011/4/91-Estt.(A) dated 14 September 1992.

That memorandum was itself issued to give effect to Union of India v. K.V. Jankiraman, (1991) 4 SCC 109, also reported as AIR 1991 SC 2010, decided on 27 August 1991. The Court agreed with the Full Bench of the Tribunal on the commencement question:

it is only when a charge-memo in a disciplinary proceedings or a charge-sheet in a criminal prosecution is issued to the employee that it can be said that the departmental proceedings/criminal prosecution is initiated against the employee. The sealed cover procedure is to be resorted to only after the charge-memo/charge-sheet is issued. The pendency of preliminary investigation prior to that stage will not be sufficient to enable the authorities to adopt the sealed cover procedure.

The charge-memo threshold was not a 1991 innovation. Sixteen months earlier, in The State of Madhya Pradesh v. Bani Singh, 1990 Supp (1) SCC 738, also AIR 1990 SC 1308, decided on 5 April 1990, the Supreme Court held at paragraph 6 that the pendency or contemplated initiation of disciplinary proceedings “must be considered as having absolutely no impact upon his right to be considered”, and that where proceedings had not reached the stage of framing of charge after a prima facie case is established, consideration for promotion to a higher selection grade cannot be withheld merely on the ground of pendency. The same judgment quashed a charge memo issued on 22 April 1987 for irregularities of 1975 to 1977, holding that there was no satisfactory explanation for the inordinate delay of over twelve years.

The 1992 memorandum did not define when a prosecution is “pending”, and paragraph 8 of the 2012 memorandum supplied the answer by borrowing the pension rules: judicial proceedings in a criminal case are deemed instituted on the date the complaint or police report of which the magistrate takes cognizance is made. That definition sat in Rule 9(6)(b)(i) of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 1972 and now sits, in identical words, in Explanation (1)(b)(i) to Rule 8 of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021.

Two later judgments applied the threshold to facts that arise constantly. In Union of India v. Anil Kumar Sarkar, (2013) 4 SCC 161, also AIR 2013 SC 1661, the employee was not under suspension, had not been served a charge sheet and faced no prosecution on 21 April 2003, the date his batch mates were promoted; the charge sheet came on 13 August 2003, nearly four months later. The Court held that where none of the three conditions exists on the relevant date, the recommendation of the committee has to be honoured and there is no question of applying the sealed cover process.

In Union of India v. Doly Loyi, 2024 INSC 729, Civil Appeal No. 8387 of 2013, decided on 24 September 2024, the facts were about vigilance clearance directly. An Additional Commissioner of Income Tax had the vigilance certificate withheld, and the committee that met on 22 February 2007 put the promotion recommendation in a sealed cover on the footing that a prosecution on a criminal charge was pending. Sanction to prosecute had been granted on 2 June 2006, but the Central Bureau of Investigation filed its charge sheet only on 25 October 2008, well after the committee met. The Court held at paragraph 24 that “the pendency of investigation and grant of prosecution sanction will not be sufficient to enable the authorities to adopt the sealed cover procedure”, dismissed the appeal, and the sealed cover, opened in court, showed the officer assessed as fit.

Doly Loyi was decided a fortnight before the 2024 vigilance clearance instruction issued, and the two are consistent only because they govern different things. Limb 8(g) of the instruction denies clearance for empanelment and deputation once sanction has been granted and the case is pending in the trial court, that is, after cognizance. Doly Loyi holds that for promotion, sanction alone is not enough even to justify a sealed cover. Read together, sanction without cognizance blocks nothing, and cognizance blocks empanelment but still not promotion.

The clarification that holds the two regimes apart is Clarification No. 102/03/2024-AVD-IA dated 6 February 2025, which directs ministries to read applicability from paragraph 2 for All India Services officers and paragraph 7 for the Central Civil Services. Neither paragraph lists promotion or a departmental promotion committee. The same position had been stated seventeen years earlier, in Office Memorandum No. 11012/6/2008-Estt.(A) dated 7 July 2008, which recorded that the consolidated instructions of 14 December 2007 do not apply to promotions.

Two subsidiary rules complete the picture. A review committee takes into account only the circumstances obtaining at the time of the original committee, under Office Memorandum No. 22011/2/99-Estt.(A) dated 21 November 2002. And a second charge sheet issued after full exoneration in the first does not block opening of the sealed cover, under Office Memorandum No. 22011/2/2002-Estt.(A) dated 24 February 2003.

The Agreed List and the list of officers of doubtful integrity

Two watch lists feed limbs 8(c) and 8(l), and neither is a penalty. An officer can be on either without ever having been charged.

The Agreed List is prepared by the Chief Vigilance Officer in consultation with the Central Bureau of Investigation and names officers whose honesty or integrity is doubtful or suspicious. Its criteria come from the programme for vigilance and anti-corruption work circulated by Ministry of Home Affairs letter No. 130/1/66-AVD dated 5 May 1966. It remains in force for one year from the date of preparation. Inclusion is a standalone ground of denial under limb 8(c), subject to a mandatory revisit of the position after one year.

The list of officers of doubtful integrity was prescribed in 1969, with criteria in Ministry of Home Affairs letter No. 105/1/66-AVD dated 28 October 1969, and remains in force for three years. Four categories qualify: an officer convicted for lack of integrity or an offence involving moral turpitude but not dismissed, removed or compulsorily retired in view of exceptional circumstances; an officer awarded a major penalty departmentally on charges of lack of integrity or gross dereliction of duty in protecting the interest of Government, although corrupt motive may not be capable of proof; an officer against whom major penalty proceedings or a court trial is in progress for alleged acts involving lack of integrity or moral turpitude; and an officer prosecuted but acquitted on technical grounds where a reasonable suspicion about integrity remains. Both lists are described in Chapter II, paragraph 2.4(xvii) of the Vigilance Manual (updated 2021).

The fourth category is the one to notice at the end of a criminal case. An acquittal removes the criminal-side grounds at limbs 8(f) to 8(i), but if the acquittal was on technical grounds the officer may remain on the doubtful integrity list, and the tail of limb 8(l) then continues to deny clearance for as long as the entry stands.

Old complaints: the five-year and six-month rules

Complaints have a shelf life for this purpose, and the rule that fixes it is a Commission instruction rather than a departmental one. Office Order No. 57/8/04 dated 31 August 2004 issued by the Central Vigilance Commission recorded that when an official is due for promotion, selection or empanelment, old complaints are sometimes taken cognisance of and investigations started, and directed that for the purpose of giving vigilance clearance in such cases, as a rule, complaints and cases which are more than five years old and against which no action has been taken until then should not be taken into cognisance. The five-year limit does not apply to cases of fraud and other criminal offences. The same order directs that no cognisance be taken of any complaint received up to six months before the initiation of the selection process for senior posts. It is reproduced at Chapter III, paragraph 3.7(e) of the Vigilance Manual (updated 2021).

There is no ten-year vintage rule, and no separate rule of that kind for empanelment.

Anonymous and pseudonymous complaints

An anonymous complaint has no effect on vigilance clearance. Paragraph 2 of Office Memorandum No. 104/76/2024-AVD-IA dated 9 October 2024 directs that anonymous complaints, meaning those that do not carry both the name and address of the complainant, should be filed straightaway, that no action is required irrespective of the nature of the allegations, and that they should be filed. Since limb 8(a)(I) requires at least a preliminary inquiry to establish the vigilance angle, and an anonymous complaint cannot support one, it cannot become a ground of denial.

A signed complaint that the sender will not confirm becomes pseudonymous. Paragraph 5 of the same memorandum gives the complainant 15 days to own or disown the complaint, followed by a reminder giving a further 15 days, after which the complaint is filed as pseudonymous. Complaints against Secretaries to the Government of India are the exception: paragraph 10 sends them to the Cabinet Secretary’s group for scrutiny whether pseudonymous or otherwise.

The same memorandum sets the clocks the vigilance clearance instruction depends on. The decision to file a complaint or examine it further must be taken within three months of receipt (paragraph 6), and that further examination may take the shape of a preliminary inquiry or an inquiry as the competent authority decides. A copy of the complaint goes to the officer within 15 days of a decision to examine it further (paragraph 7). A review committee chaired by an officer not below Additional Secretary meets monthly and monitors complaints pending for a decision beyond two months (paragraph 9).

Immovable property return and the 31 January deadline

The single most common reason an otherwise clean employee is refused vigilance clearance is a missed property return.

Rule 18(1)(ii) of the CCS (Conduct) Rules, 1964 requires every government servant in Group A and Group B to submit an annual return giving full particulars of immovable property inherited, owned, acquired, or held on lease or mortgage, in his own name or in the name of any family member or any other person. The equivalent for All India Services officers is Rule 16 of the AIS (Conduct) Rules, 1968. The deadline is 31 January.

The vigilance consequence was introduced by Office Memorandum No. 11012/11/2007-Estt.(A) dated 27 September 2011, which inserted a new sub-paragraph into the 14 December 2007 instruction denying clearance to an officer who fails to submit the annual immovable property return of the previous year by 31 January of the following year, and recorded that such officers will not be considered for empanelment for senior level posts in the Government of India. It survives unchanged as limb 8(k) of the 2024 instruction. Office Memorandum No. 11013/17/2023-PP-A.III dated 14 July 2023 reiterated the deadline and its consequence, added that failure to file “can form good and sufficient reasons for instituting disciplinary proceedings”, and directed internal audit of compliance. Separately, Office Memorandum No. 11013/3/2011-Estt.(A) dated 23 September 2013 requires cadre controlling authorities to place returns in the public domain by 31 March.

The 2024 text describes the deadline as 31 January of the current year for the previous year’s return, while the 2011, 2022 and 2023 instructions describe it as 31 January of the following year. Both describe the same date: the return for calendar year 2026 is due by 31 January 2027.

Who approves the clearance

Paragraph 11 of the 2024 instruction fixes two approval levels, replacing a rank-relative test that had stood since 2007.

The 2007 and 2022 texts had allowed the Head of the Vigilance Division to clear officers up to one level below his own seniority, reserving the Secretary’s approval for Additional Secretary and Secretary level officers. The 2024 change pulls Joint Secretary level into the Secretary’s basket and converts a floating test into a fixed grade cut-off.

Within the Department of Personnel and Training, the desks are divided by service and subject. AVD-IA holds policy on disciplinary matters and vigilance clearance for Indian Administrative Service officers, and issued the 2024 instruction. AVD-ID holds vigilance clearance, court cases and prosecution sanction for Group A officers of the Central Secretariat Service and the Central Secretariat Stenographers Service. AVD-II handles the administrative and financial matters of the Central Bureau of Investigation, and AVD-III handles all administrative matters concerning the Central Vigilance Commission, legislation relating to it, and disagreements between the disciplinary authority or the Union Public Service Commission and the Commission.

On a reference, the Commission conveys one of three responses, set out at Chapter XI, paragraph 11.2(9) of the Vigilance Manual (updated 2021). It reports that there is nothing adverse on its records, where its database holds no adverse input, the Bureau reports nothing adverse, and the departmental vigilance profile is clean. It denies clearance, where the Bureau reports an adverse input such as a launched prosecution or a regular case under investigation, or the departmental profile shows a disciplinary proceeding in progress or a penalty whose currency is still in force, or the Commission’s own advice for initiation of proceedings is still pending. Or it states that clearance cannot be considered at this stage, where complaints or cases are pending at the department’s end, in which case the department is told to take them to a logical conclusion and come back with an updated profile.

The 2024 instruction removed the exit an employee previously had from a stalled reference. Paragraph 5 of the 14 December 2007 instruction and paragraphs 2(v) and 3(v) of the 28 September 2022 instruction both provided that if the Commission’s comments were not received within three months, it would be presumed that there was nothing adverse against the officer on the records of the body concerned. Paragraphs 5 and 10 of the 2024 instruction retain the requirement to obtain the Commission’s comments and drop the deeming provision. A reference that stalls at the Commission now has no automatic expiry.

Case-by-case clearance and restricted clearance

Paragraph 9 of the 2024 instruction, paragraph 4 for All India Services officers, carves out four situations in which the competent authority decides on the facts, keeping in view the sensitivity of the purpose, the gravity of the allegations, and the circumstances of the case.

The first is where a pre-investigation enquiry by an investigating agency in a criminal matter has remained pending for more than three months. The second is where the investigating agency has not completed its investigation and filed charges even after two years from the date the investigation was initiated. The third is where the investigating agency or the competent authority has recommended closure but the court has not permitted closure of the case or the FIR. The fourth is where the investigating agency or inquiry officer holds the charges proved but the competent administrative authority takes the converse view.

The second of these produces a distinct animal: a restricted clearance. Where clearance is granted after two years of unfinished investigation, paragraph 9(b) confines it to consideration for non-sensitive posts and premature repatriation to the cadre, and not to the other occasions in paragraph 7. The same paragraph directs ministries and departments to identify sensitive posts within their organisations forthwith and deems all posts of Joint Secretary and above, though not equivalent posts, to be sensitive. Since the paragraph 7 list covers empanelment, deputation, confirmation, study leave and voluntary retirement, a restricted clearance is a narrow document.

Retirement, pension and gratuity

At retirement the question shifts from an executive instruction to a statutory rule, and the rule is more protective than most employees expect.

Rule 8 of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021, notified as G.S.R. 868(E) under Notification No. 38/3/2017-P&PW(A) dated 20 December 2021, is the successor to Rule 9 of the 1972 Rules. Rule 8(1) reserves to the President the right to withhold a pension or gratuity or both, in full or in part, or to withdraw a pension permanently or for a specified period, and to order recovery of a pecuniary loss, if in any departmental or judicial proceeding the pensioner is found guilty of grave misconduct or negligence during service. The second proviso bars reducing a pension below the minimum under Rule 44, and Rule 8(6) caps recovery of pecuniary loss at one-third of the pension admissible on the date of retirement.

Four limbs matter to an employee retiring with a vigilance file open.

Rule 8(2)(b) removes minor penalty proceedings from the picture entirely. Departmental proceedings instituted under Rule 16 of the CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965 while in service and continued after retirement “shall have no effect on the pension and gratuity of the pensioner”. A departmental inquiry that never crossed into major penalty territory cannot cost a rupee of pension.

Rule 8(3) and Rule 8(4) apply where proceedings are instituted or continued. A provisional pension is sanctioned equal to the maximum pension admissible on the qualifying service to the date of retirement, or to the day before suspension where the employee was under suspension on retirement, authorised from the day after retirement until final orders. Rule 8(4)(c) then withholds gratuity: “No gratuity shall be paid to the Government servant until the conclusion of the departmental or judicial proceedings and issue of final orders thereon.”

Rule 8(4)(d) is the limb departments most often ignore. The provisional pension machinery “shall not be applicable where allegations of misconduct are under investigation against a Government servant or where departmental or judicial proceedings are contemplated against a Government servant but have not actually been instituted or deemed to have been instituted”, and pension and gratuity in such cases must be authorised on retirement in accordance with Rule 63. A live vigilance investigation with no charge sheet is not a ground to hold back a rupee. The deeming dates are in the Explanation to Rule 8: departmental proceedings are instituted on the date the statement of charges is issued, or from an earlier date of suspension, and criminal proceedings on the date the complaint or police report of which the magistrate takes cognizance is made.

Rule 8(2)(c) governs proceedings not instituted while in service. They require the sanction of the President in Format 2, must not relate to an event more than four years before institution, and the memorandum of charges must be communicated in Format 3.

The declarations that carry the vigilance position into the pension papers are Form 6 item 7, in which the retiring employee states whether any departmental or judicial proceedings are pending, and Form 7 item 8, in which the head of office records the same and notes that provisional pension will be admissible and gratuity withheld till conclusion. On conclusion, Rule 63(5) requires the head of office to forward the final orders with the details in Form 7-A within thirty days of the orders, and the accounts officer to authorise final pension within thirty days of receiving Form 7-A.

Where a department sits on a file it has no basis to hold, Rule 65(1) supplies the answer: interest at the General Provident Fund rate on arrears, where provisional pension or gratuity has not been sanctioned as required or payment is authorised later than due and the delay is clearly established as attributable to administrative reasons or lapses. Rule 65(2) requires every delayed case to be considered by the Secretary of the ministry or an officer not below Joint Secretary. The proviso excludes delay caused by the employee’s own failure to follow the procedure. This machinery is separate from the withholding and recovery from gratuity provisions that operate on outstanding dues.

The competence to withhold was decentralised in 2022. G.S.R. 770(E) dated 7 October 2022 amended Rule 8, and Office Memorandum No. 38/41/19-P&PW(A)[6018] dated 10 April 2023 issued by the Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare explains the effect: approval of the President is now required only where the pensioner retired from a post for which the President is the appointing authority. In other cases the Secretary of the administrative ministry is competent, and the Comptroller and Auditor General of India is competent for the Indian Audit and Accounts Department. Consultation with the Union Public Service Commission is no longer necessary where the President is not the appointing authority, though where the case was submitted to the President at any stage during the proceedings the final decision still needs the President’s approval and Commission consultation.

Voluntary retirement and life after retirement

Rule 43(3) of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 lets the appointing authority withhold permission to retire voluntarily on twenty years of qualifying service in three situations: where the employee is under suspension; where a charge sheet has been issued and disciplinary proceedings are pending; and where judicial proceedings on charges which may amount to grave misconduct are pending. Accepting the notice despite these requires the approval of the President. Rule 42 is the parallel provision for thirty years of qualifying service, and FR 56(k) remains the corresponding Fundamental Rule. Voluntary retirement is also now a listed occasion for vigilance clearance in its own right, under paragraph 7 of the 2024 instruction, which is distinct from premature retirement ordered by the Government under FR 56(j).

Commercial employment after retirement is governed by Rule 9 of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021, which requires a Group A pensioner to obtain previous sanction within one year of retirement by applying in Form 1. Rule 9(3)(a) directs the Government to have regard to whether a no objection for the proposed employment has been obtained from the cadre controlling authority and from the office where the officer retired. Since 9 October 2024 post-retirement commercial employment is also a listed vigilance clearance occasion, so the same file is checked twice, once under the pension rules and once under the vigilance instruction.

Passports and private foreign travel

The grounds for refusing vigilance clearance for a passport are narrower than the general grounds, and were narrowed further in 2020. Office Memorandum No. 11012/7/2017-Estt.A-III dated 18 February 2020, issued in express supersession of the memorandum of even number dated 28 March 2018 and after consultation with the Central Vigilance Commission and the Ministry of External Affairs, allows clearance to be withheld on two grounds only: the officer is under suspension, or a charge sheet has been filed in court by the investigating agency in a criminal case, or a court has taken cognizance after grant of sanction under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 or in any other criminal matter. The 2018 memorandum had six grounds and a policy statement that ordinarily a passport would not be granted where a disciplinary proceeding was pending. Both are gone. A pending departmental proceeding is no longer a ground to refuse a passport clearance, though Section 6(2) of the Passports Act, 1967 continues to govern refusal by the passport authority itself.

Private foreign travel is a separate permission, not a clearance. Office Memorandum No. 11013/8/2015-Estt.A-III dated 29 June 2015 requires prior permission of the competent authority, and the prescribed application format asks whether any disciplinary proceeding or criminal case is pending against the government servant. Ex-India study leave, by contrast, became a listed vigilance clearance occasion under paragraph 7(iii) of the 2024 instruction.

Online systems

A dedicated portal at probity-dopt.nic.in was made functional in 2017 to collect data from ministries, departments, autonomous organisations and public sector banks on five items: review under FR 56(j) and similar provisions, the number of cases pending for sanction for prosecution, implementation of the rotational transfer policy including identification of sensitive posts and the number occupied for more than three years, the number of major and minor penalty disciplinary proceedings, and discontinuation of interviews for Group B non-gazetted and Group C posts. The revamped Probity Portal was launched on Good Governance Day, 25 December 2022, alongside e-HRMS 2.0, with departments undertaking to submit updated data monthly. e-HRMS 2.0 lists “Vigilance Status” among the services delivered in digital mode, alongside transfers, deputation, the Annual Performance Appraisal Report, the property return, training and the service book.

The distinction to hold on to is that these are data collection, monitoring and status systems for the administration. The clearance itself is still issued on file, by the Head of the Vigilance Division or the Secretary under paragraph 11, and an employee does not download a certificate from a portal.

What changed on 9 October 2024

The 2024 instruction was not a reprint. Set against the consolidated instruction of 28 September 2022, it made ten substantive changes.

The instruction contains no supersession clause. Its opening paragraph records that the Department has from time to time issued instructions and guidelines, and that an effort has been made to revise them for better understanding and guidance. It replaces the 2022 instruction by covering the same ground comprehensively, not by express words, which is worth noting when an authority relies on a 2022 paragraph that the 2024 text dropped.

Remedies against a refusal

The first step is a representation to the competent authority, which for most employees is the Head of the Vigilance Division or the Secretary who declined the clearance. Because a refusal is usually communicated as a bare fact, the representation should ask which of the twelve limbs of paragraph 8 is said to apply and on what material, and where a complaint is relied on, whether a preliminary inquiry was initiated within three months of receipt and completed within three months of initiation.

The forum is the Central Administrative Tribunal, on an original application under Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, with a writ petition to a Division Bench of the High Court thereafter. There is no direct appeal to the Supreme Court from the Tribunal.

Four grounds recur and each has authority behind it. A refusal on a ground not listed in the instruction is arbitrary, and the Department has itself said such a refusal “may not be legally tenable” (paragraph 1, Office Memorandum No. 22034/4/2012-Estt.(D) dated 2 November 2012). A refusal for promotion where none of the three sealed cover conditions existed on the relevant date is bad on Anil Kumar Sarkar. A refusal grounded on an investigation or a sanction, without a charge memo or a charge sheet before a court, is bad on Jankiraman and Doly Loyi. And a refusal grounded on a complaint on which the department did not act within the three-month windows is contrary to limb 8(a)(II) on the instruction’s own terms.

Where the refusal has already cost a promotion, the relief sought is notional promotion from the date the junior was promoted, with consequential seniority, and the appeal and review machinery under the CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965 runs in parallel where the underlying grievance is a penalty rather than the clearance itself.

Points the instructions leave open

Three questions have no answer in any current instruction, and departments resolve them differently.

The currency of a censure is undefined, which leaves the three-year bar in limb 8(l) without a start date for the most commonly imposed penalty in the service.

No validity period is prescribed for a clearance once granted. Neither the 2024 instruction nor the Vigilance Manual fixes one, and the frequently repeated figure of one year has no source in either. The one-year periods in the instructions attach to the Agreed List, not to the clearance. In practice a fresh clearance is obtained for each occasion, and paragraph 17.1 of Office Memorandum No. 22011/5/86-Estt.(D) dated 10 April 1989 independently requires a fresh check immediately before an actual promotion or confirmation order issues.

No deadline binds the authority to grant or refuse. Every three-month clock in the regime attaches to complaint handling, preliminary inquiry, service of a charge sheet, or approval under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, and none of them attaches to the issue of the clearance itself. The deletion of the Commission’s three-month deeming clause in 2024 removed the one automatic outcome that existed.

Related Articles

• Central Vigilance Commission
• Chief Vigilance Officer
• Central Bureau of Investigation
• Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988
• Sanction for prosecution
• Probity Portal
• CCS (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1965
• CCS (Conduct) Rules, 1964
• Immovable property return
• Suspension
• Preliminary inquiry
• Charge sheet and articles of charge
• Departmental inquiry
• Major and minor penalty proceedings
• Reduction in rank
• Appeal, review and revision under the CCS (CCA) Rules
• Central Administrative Tribunal
• Sealed cover procedure
• Departmental promotion committee
• Promotion in central government
• Modified Assured Career Progression
• MACP compared with promotion
• Confirmation in service
• Probation in central government
• Deputation in central government
• Central Staffing Scheme
• Foreign service
• Rotational transfer policy
• Annual Performance Appraisal Report
• Study leave
• Voluntary retirement
• Premature retirement under FR 56(j)
• Retirement age in central government
• Post-retirement commercial employment
• Provisional pension
• Gratuity in central government
• Withholding and recovery from gratuity
• Central government pension
• Technical resignation
• Resignation from government service
• Reinstatement
• Discharge from service
• Dies non
• Bhavishya portal
• Last pay certificate
• Department of Personnel and Training

External references

• Department of Personnel and Training, circulars and office memoranda: dopt.gov.in
• Central Vigilance Commission, Vigilance Manual and circulars: cvc.gov.in
• Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare, CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 and orders: doppw.gov.in
• Pensioners’ Portal, rules, forms and formats: pensionersportal.gov.in
• Central Bureau of Investigation: cbi.gov.in
• Gazette of India, notifications: egazette.gov.in
• Central Administrative Tribunal: cgat.gov.in

References

1. Department of Personnel and Training, Office Memorandum No. 104/33/2024-AVD-IA, dated 9 October 2024, revised guidelines regarding grant of vigilance clearance to All India Services officers and Central Civil Services and central civil posts.
2. Department of Personnel and Training, Office Memorandum No. 104/76/2024-AVD-IA, dated 9 October 2024, revised guidelines regarding handling of complaints in ministries, departments and organisations of the Government of India.
3. Department of Personnel and Training, Clarification No. 102/03/2024-AVD-IA, dated 6 February 2025, on applicability of the vigilance clearance guidelines to departmental promotion committees and promotion.
4. Department of Personnel and Training, Office Memorandum No. 22034/4/2012-Estt.(D), dated 2 November 2012, comprehensive review of instructions pertaining to vigilance clearance for promotion.
5. Department of Personnel and Training, Office Memorandum No. 22011/4/91-Estt.(A), dated 14 September 1992, sealed cover procedure.
6. Department of Personnel and Training, Office Memorandum No. 22011/5/86-Estt.(D), dated 10 April 1989, guidelines on departmental promotion committees, paragraph 17.1.
7. Department of Personnel and Training, Office Memorandum No. 11012/11/2007-Estt.(A), dated 14 December 2007, with the amendments dated 27 September 2011 and 21 June 2013, and Office Memorandum No. 11012/6/2008-Estt.(A), dated 7 July 2008.
8. Department of Personnel and Training, Office Memorandum No. 11012/7/2017-Estt.A-III, dated 18 February 2020, vigilance clearance for issue of passport.
9. Department of Personnel and Training, Office Memorandum No. 11013/17/2023-PP-A.III, dated 14 July 2023, timely submission of the annual immovable property return.
10. Central Vigilance Commission, Vigilance Manual (updated 2021), Chapter II paragraph 2.4, Chapter III paragraph 3.7 and Chapter XI paragraph 11.2; Office Order No. 57/8/04, dated 31 August 2004.
11. CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021, notified as G.S.R. 868(E) under Notification No. 38/3/2017-P&PW(A), dated 20 December 2021, Rules 8, 9, 42, 43, 63 and 65, as amended by G.S.R. 770(E), dated 7 October 2022.
12. Union of India v. K.V. Jankiraman, (1991) 4 SCC 109, also AIR 1991 SC 2010, decided 27 August 1991; The State of Madhya Pradesh v. Bani Singh, 1990 Supp (1) SCC 738, decided 5 April 1990; Union of India v. Anil Kumar Sarkar, (2013) 4 SCC 161; Union of India v. Doly Loyi, 2024 INSC 729, decided 24 September 2024.