The Government of India compulsorily retired 15 Commissioner-level officials of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs. According to finance ministry sources, the ousted officials were charged with corruption, collecting and giving bribes, smuggling and even criminal conspiracy.

Of late, the Modi government has intensified its efforts to clean-up the bureaucracy. Last week, the government had compulsorily retired 12 senior IRS officials from the Income Tax department over charges of corruption, sexual harassment, disproportionate assets under Rule 56(j) of Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules.

In the latest crackdown, the government compulsorily retired CBIC Principal Commissioner Anup Srivastava (1984-batch IRS), as well as commissioners Atul Dikshit (1988-batch IRS), Sansar Chand (1986-batch IRS), G Shree Harsha (1991-batch IRS), and Vinay Brij (1995-batch IRS).

Other officials who faced the music included CBIC additional commissioners Ashok R Mahida (1990-batch IRS) and Virendra Kumar Agarwal (1990-batch IRS), along with Deputy Commissioner Amresh Jain (1992-batch IRS), Joint  Commissioner Nalin Kumar (2005-batch IRS), assistant commissioners SS Pabana (2014-batch IRS), SS Bisht (2014-batch IRS) and Vinod Kumar Sanga (2014-batch IRS).

Additional Commissioner Raju Sekar (1992-batch IRS), Deputy Commissioner Ashok Kumar Aswal (2003-batch IRS) and Assistant Commissioner Mohammad Altaf (2009-batch IRS) have also been compulsorily retired.

The Rule 56(j) of Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 1972 provides for periodical review of performance of government servants with a view to ascertain whether they should be retained in service or retired from service in public interest.

As per these instructions, the cases of government servants covered by FR 56(j), 56(1) or Rule 48(1) (b) of CCS (Pension) Rules, 1972 should be reviewed six months before they attain the age of 50-55 years, in cases covered by FR 56(j) and on completion of 30 years of qualifying service under FR 56(1) or Rule 48 of CCS (Pension) Rules, 1972.