Thiruvananthapuram: The Government of Kerala has decided to make police verification compulsory for recruitments to aided education institutions, public sector enterprises as well as cooperative banks and societies.  

The meeting of the state Cabinet, held on Wednesday, also decided to make this applicable for jobs in devaswom boards, welfare boards and development authorities.  

The practice of police verification to check whether there is any criminal case pending against an employee has been existing in the government service for a long. The same system is now being extended to other sectors. 

Time limit

The police verification process should be completed within one month after the recruitment. The rules and regulations and statutes of the respective institutions and organisations would be amended to incorporate the clause for police verification for jobs.

Pressing concern

The decision to implement police verification comes in the wake of large-scale complaints that many persons, who have been either convicted or embroiled in criminal cases, are getting employed in many organisations coming under the state government.

The police had earlier found that those accused in cases like domestic violence, sexual abuse and finanial fraud are indulging in the same of kind of crimes once they join semi-governmental organisations as an employee.

Those who are found involved in criminal cases are kept out of the government service till they prove their innocence. Those who were punished for criminal offences are dismissed from the government service.      

Implications for current employees

Appropriate action will be recommended to the state government if it is found that the existing staff working in places like aided institutions and the cooperative institutions are facing criminal cases, stated official sources.

Those involved in serious offences will be kept out of service till are proved innocent. Those who were punished would lose their jobs.

Those concealing information about their criminal past would be subject to other official procedures.

Current scrutiny

The Central Government institutions and banks follow the same system of police verification. Now, when a job aspirant files the PSC application form, one must provide information on police charges or disciplinary action so far faced. The applicant should also reveal whether the PSC had debarred the person from taking any test over a past malpractice.

The police verification is conducted just after a person enters a job.

Once entering the government service, the employee has to fill a form, containing questions on involvement in criminal cases. The form  will be sent by the appointing authority to the District Police Superintendent for verification. Till the police verification report is found positive, he is being treated as an employee working on a temporary basis. 

If the police verification is negative and if it is found that the information furnished was wrong, the employee would lose his job.       

Old practice annnulled and restored

The seven-party EMS Namboodiripad-led Government had scrapped police verification in 1967 after the then Governor Bhagavan Sahayi announced the new policy in the Assembly. Many people, who were earlier kept out of government jobs due to adverse police verification reports, were given jobs then. 

But the system of police verification was restored by the Achutha Menon Ministry in 1974. The order issued in 1974 specified that the job applicant had to fill a form in which he had to answer questions on his character and conduct and his criminal antecedents. 

The police verification was made mandatory for jobs in KSRTC, KSEB, statutory corporations and government companies in 1975.