Employees asked to file property return, IAS officers to submit IPRs
The administration has directed all the employees in Jammu and Kashmir to register themselves on the Property Return System (PRS) Portal and subsequently file their annual property returns for the year 2021 necessarily.
The instructions have been issued to employees five days after the Jammu and Kashmir Chief Secretary Dr. Arun Kumar Mehta launched an online portal for submission of yearly property returns mandated by the employees conduct rules.
Whereas, Sub Section 2 of Section 9 of the Jammu and Kashmir Public Men and Public Servants Declaration of Assets and other Provisions Act, 1983 lays down that it shall be incumbent on the part of every/ public servant to submit annual returns of the assets held by him and his family members in the months of January every year and shall indicate the reasons for the increase, if any, in the assets and source thereof.
The said Act and Rules also lay down that every Public servant shall submit annual property returns in duplicate to the General Administration Department (Vigilance) in respect of all the assets possessed by the public servant and his family members.
This manual mode of filing the annual property returns was seen as a cumbersome exercise and in order to make it easy and accessible, it was felt that property returns should be filed through online mode and the process for submission should be made user friendly.
A circular in this regard has been issued by the General Administration Department.
“With a view to making the process of filing of property returns employee-friendly, the Government of Jammu and Kashmir has recently launched online portal for filing of annual property returns (PRS Portal). The facility for filing the annual property returns by all public servants shall be available on https://prs.jk.gov.in- The public servants can file their annual property returns on the portal from 1st of January and the facility will get automatically closed on 31st of January every year”.
“For submitting the details on the portal, every employee has to first register himself on the portal through his CPIS account, In case of employees with no CPIS number, their respective DDOs will get them registered on the portal”, the circular added.
The portal will facilitate the processing of vigilance clearance in favour of the employees and non-submission of the property returns will result in denial of their vigilance clearance, it added.
Accordingly, all the employees are instructed to register themselves on the PRS Portal and subsequently file their annual property returns for the year 2021 necessarily. The employees will be able to submit their property details on the portal from 1st of January, 2022 up to 31st of January, 2022. Further, it is enjoined upon all the DDOs to ensure the registration/subsequent filing of the property details of their employees within the specified timelines, the circular added.
Whereas the General Administration Department in a separate circular has instructed the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers working in Jammu and Kashmir to submit Immovable Property Return electronically of the preceding year by 31st January of the net year. The circular added that failure of submitting IPR whereof constitutes good and sufficient reason for the institution of disciplinary proceedings.
“An online module has been introduced w.e.f. 01.01.2017 in respect of IAS officers for online filling of IPR. Through this module, every IAS officer can submit his/her IPR either electronically or upload a scanned copy of the manually filled in IPR. This online module will close automatically after the prescribed timeline of 31st January 2022 in respect of filing of IPR of preceding year”, the circular reads.
In terms of the extant Rules, the IAS officers have to necessarily file IPRs electronically as there is no provision for submission of IPRs manually. The timely submission of IPRs has assumed significance as in terms of DoPT’s instructions late submission of IPR results in denial of vigilance clearance, it added.
The IAS officers working in connection with the affairs of the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir are accordingly advised to observe the above instructions in letter & spirit. These instructions have been uploaded on the GAD website www.jkgad.nic.in, it added.
