The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has notified the Central Civil Services (Pension) Amendment Rules, 2020 on May 31.
- According to the new pension rules, retired intelligence officials will forfeit pension benefits if they publish any information related to the organisation they served without government clearance.
- The new rules are not applicable to the IAS, the IFS, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), former Union Ministers or the armed forces.
- The rules would cover retired officials of the Intelligence Bureau, RAW, National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), Indian Revenue Service (IRS), Customs officials and all other organisations exempted under the Right to Information Act (RTI) such as the National Security Council Secretariat, Defence Research and Development Organisation, Border Road Organisation among others.
- However, this is not the first time, that pension rules have been amended. In 2008, Rule 8 pertaining to “pension subject to future good conduct” was first amended by inserting the condition that retired intelligence and security officials will not publish any material that affects the “sovereignty and integrity of India, the security, strategic, scientific or economic interests of the State, or relation with a foreign State or which would lead to incitement of an offence”.
(Source: The Hindu)
