IPS officers told to immediately submit property returns

New Delhi, June 29 (IANS) The over-500 Indian Police Service (IPS) officers who have not yet tendered their annual property returns have been asked to mandatorily submit the details immediately, Home Minister P. Chidambaram said Friday.

The deadline for submission of property returns by the IPS officers to the state governments, as per their cadre, had ended on Jan 31 this year.

"The IPS cadre has a strength of 3,325 officers. Of these, property returns for the year 2011 of 550 officers have not yet been received by the ministry of home affairs (MHA), although the due date of Jan 31, 2012, is long over," Chidambaram said at a press conference called to present his ministry's monthly report.

The IPS officers who have not submitted their property returns should do so immediately, he added.

Indicating that the lapse on the part of the IPS officers has been taken seriously by the central government, he said the state governments concerned had been requested to secure the property returns of these officers.

"In some cases, the officer concerned has informed the MHA that he or she had already submitted his or her return to the state government and it is the state government which had apparently failed to forward the returns to the central government."

"Hence, the MHA is advising the officers through an announcement on the website that if they had already submitted their returns to the state government, and yet their names appear in the defaulting officers' list, the officer concerned should submit a copy directly to the central government," he said.

The All India Service Rules stipulates that IPS officers should submit their property returns by Jan 31 every year for the previous calendar year ending Dec 31.

Several senior officers, including some of those serving in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), are yet to submit their 2011 returns.