Mallikarjunam was from Kurnool distirict in Andhra Pradesh. His father-in-law was a large farmer. Mallikarjunam’s wife was used to having household workers around her. She found it hard to manage things at their home in Bengaluru without domestic help. Her father sends ten year old Balram to assist her at home. Balram’s father is a farm-worker who has been living on their land for long. She treated Balram kindly, and also sent him to school. The boy helped her in small domestic chores. As it happened, Mallikarjunam had to discipline some employees in his office for neglecting their work and trying to fleece applicants visiting the office. The disgruntled employees made a complaint that Mallikarjunam was employing and exploiting child labour.
How would you respond to the situation in this case?
1. Mallikarjunam shouldignore the complaints as motivated.
2. Mallikarjunam should not have employed Balram.
3. Balram is much better off in Bengaluru than in his village.
4. Mallikarjunam should inflate Balram’s age in school register to avoid any legal problems.
The first alternative is not relevant because it is not forMallikarjunam to ignore thecomplaints. They havebeenmade bydisgruntledstaff.Nevertheless,the factsof the mattermaycome forinvestigation. This will embarrass Mallikarjunam.
This second option is the correct one. Government officials have to carefully follow the laws and social norms. Balram is clearly under aged. He cannot be employed for any kind of work in the household of Mallikarjunam. Government officers are constantly in public gaze. Interested persons will try to exploit even minor weaknesses and lapses of government servants. They should have no chinks in their armour. They need to, in their own interest, scrupulously follow all the rules and regulations.
The third point is irrelevant. The point is not whether Balram is more comfortable in Bengaluru or in his village. The issue revolves around whether he is being employed in child labour which is prohibited by law.
The fourth alternative contains an absolutely unacceptable suggestion. If that suggestion is followed, Mallikarjunam will be compounding his original error by trying to tinker with school records.
There are a few more conduct rules which have to do with the civil servants’ official conduct in certain spheres. They should not try to use political influence to further their career or secure ‘plum’ jobs. At times, some civil servants with a view to self-publicity or self-promotion get functions organized in which they are praised sky high or conferred various ‘awards’. The conduct rules frown upon such ego trips or scarcely disguised self-publicity. But it seems that after the recent spate of scams, government servants have become somewhat withdrawn and are trying to fly below the radar.
As is to be expected, no government servant should criticize government policies in public. However, they can use official channels to express and share their experiences in implementing policies and programmes. Further, government servants are prohibited from divulging information which they come to know from official documents. They can do so only in court proceedings or before official committees.
Even whengovernment servantsaresubjected to defamatoryattacksfor any of theirofficial acts, they cannot, without government’s prior approval, take recourse to court proceedings or counterattacks in press.
There are a few aspects which find no mention in conduct rules. Civil servants have to conduct themselves with decency, decorum and dignity. They should be polite and courteous to Members of Parliament, Members of Legislative Assembly and to general public. They should always be cool and composed. They have to avoid boorish conduct, especially with women. They have to be soberly dressed and well groomed (should not look like hippies!).
Readers would have noticed that the code of conduct for officials consists mainly of prohibitions than prescriptions. The code is usually a list of inappropriate behaviours or of what officials should not do. It is understood (or goes without saying) that they should perform their duties faithfully, diligentlyand expeditiously in publicinterest, uninfluenced by extraneousconsiderations.