CODE OF ETHICS FOR CIVIL SERVANTS
The Santhanam Committee on Prevention of Corruption (1964) remarked:
“For a country like India, development of her material resources and raising the standards of life of all classes are indeed imperative. At the same time, the deterioration in the standards of public
life has to be arrested. Ways and means have to be found to ensure that idealism and patriotism have the proper place in the ambition of our youth. The lack of moral earnestness, which has been a conspicuous feature of recent years, is perhaps the greatest single factor which hampers the growth of strong traditions of integrity and efficiency.”
Values like altruism and empathy for poor are hard to imbibe after joining the civil services. They need to be instilled in childhood in family and school. The Indian Public Services have many established traditions. Many of these are in the form of conventions of propriety and acceptable behaviour without formal sanctions. However, there is also a need for a higher code of ethics. For the codes of conduct, while containing some general norms like ‘maintaining integrity and absolute devotion to duty’ and not indulging in ‘conduct unbecoming of a government servant’, are generally directed towards cataloguing specific activities deemed undesirable for government servants. There is no Code of Ethics prescribed for civil servants in India although such codes exist in other countries. What we have in India are several Conduct Rules, which prohibit a set of common activities. There is, of late, a concern that more ‘generic norms’ are needed in addition to the conduct rules.
A draft ‘Public Service Bill’, now under consideration of the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions seeks to lay down a number of generic expectations from civil servants, which are referred to as “values”. The salient ‘values’ envisaged in the Bill are:
¤ Allegiance to the various ideals enshrined in the preamble to the Constitution
¤ Apolitical functioning
¤ Good governance for betterment of the people to be the primary goal of civil service
¤ Duty to act objectively and impartially
¤ Accountability and transparency in decision-making
¤ Maintenance of the highest ethical standards
¤ Merit to be the criteria in selection of civil servants consistent, however, with the cultural, ethnic and other diversities of the nation
¤ Ensuring economy and avoidance of wastage in expenditure
¤ Provision of healthy and congenial work environment
¤ Communication, consultation and cooperation in performance of functions i.e. participation of all levels of personnel in management.
The draft Bill also envisages a Public Service Code and a Public Service Management Code laying down more specific duties and responsibilities. Violation of the Code would invite punishments akin to the current major and minor penalties. A ‘Public Service Authority’ is also envisaged to oversee implementation of the Code and values indicated above and to tender advice in the matter of the values and the Code. The Second Administrative Refound Commission (SARC) has recommended that there should be a set of Public Service Values which should be stipulated by law. There should be a mechanism to ensure that civil servants constantly aspire towards these values.
Summary
¤ Codes of ethics apply to the culture, education, and religion of a whole society. The Athenian code is an example of an ancient ethical code.
¤ Thinking of Indian polity, we can regard the provisions included in the Directive Principles of the Constitution as forming an ethical political code.
¤ Codes of conduct generally cover an individual’s official or professional conduct.
¤ Violation of a code of ethics involves no penalties; violations of code of conduct constitute breaches of officially prescribed rules.
¤ Official codes of conduct are not laws: their violations are not criminal offences but are administrative lapses. But some violations may be grave enough to amount to criminal offences.
¤ A professional code can be defined as a set of: “Principles, values, standards, or rules of behaviour that guide the decisions, procedures and systems of an organization in a way that (a) contributes to the welfare of its key stakeholders, and (b) respects the rights of all constituents affected by its operations.”
¤ Professional ethics cover the personal and job-related standards of behaviour expected of professionals.
¤ The standards commonly mentioned in professional codes include: honesty, integrity, transparency, accountability, confidentiality, objectivity, respectfulness and obedience to the law.
¤ Because of their specialized knowledge and training, professionals have to bear higher responsibility in their work areas.
¤ The ‘Seven Principles of Public Life’ enunciated by the Nolan committee are – selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership.
¤ Codes of conduct for officials vary in length and content. They can also be compliance- based or integrity-based.
¤ Compliance-based systemscontain detailedrules of conduct listing mainlytheimpermissible types of conduct.
¤ The integrity based codes merely outline the desired values. The civil servants are expected to imbibe the values and convert them into suitable behavioural principles of conduct.
¤ Official codes of conduct covering officers of Central services, All India services and State services are similar. They are all compliance based.
¤ The aspects they cover include: using one’s best judgement in official matters; reliance on written orders; integrity and devotion to duty; reporting details of properties and transactions; avoiding conflict of interest; financial propriety; political neutrality; observing social laws and cultural norms; and other miscellaneous provisions.
¤ There have been demands in recent past for including more ‘generic norms’ in the codes of conduct.
¤ Government is mulling over a draft ‘Public Service Bill’.
¤ Its main ingredients are – commitment to ideals of the Preamble of the constitution; apolitical functioning; good governance; objectivity and impartiality; accountability and transparency in decision-making; following high ethical standards; observing economy in expenditure; creating healthy and congenial work environment; and participatory management.
PRACTICE QUESTIONS
1. How does a code of ethics differ from a code of conduct?
2. What are the financial norms which government servants have to observe? What is the rationale of the norms?
3. “Codes of conduct for civil servants which largely consist of prohibitions on undesirable actions represent the ‘low road’ to ethics”. Discuss.
4. What are the purposes of professional codes? How do they differ from codes for government servants?
5. “An ethical code for government servants will be no more than an expression of pious intentions”. Comment.
6. “Because of spiralling levels of corruption, the codes of conduct for civil servants have to be made very stringent.” Examine critically.
7. What are the main ingredients which go into civil service codes of conduct?
8. What are the principal ethical norms which should guide public life?
9. Australia and many European countries have prescribed ethical codes for public servants whereas India has prescribed codes of conduct for them. What reasons can account for this difference of approach?
REFERENCES
Jeremy F. Flant, Codes of ethics
James S. Bowman, From Codes of Conduct to Codes of Ethics: The ASPA case
All India Services Conduct Rules
Individual Ethics of Civil Servants
Terry l. Cooper Handbook of Administrative Ethics (A collection of 34 essays by eminent public administration theorists). Consult relevant articles
