Part-B: Comments on important provisions of APAR

1. Instruction: The immediate superior officers of a Government servant, who is the

Reporting Officer, in the matter of writing his assessment Report, should be vitally
concerned, in writing the Annual Performance Assessment Report (APAR) of every one of
his subordinate in an objective and impartial manner. As the superior officer functions
through his subordinates, he also gets credit for the good work done by them. It would,
therefore, be in the interest of the Reporting officer himself to assess the performance of the
subordinates objectively and thereby give them counseling and proper guidance for
improvement of their performance.

i. Comment-1: The result or the final output is the outcome of all factors directly or
indirectly governing the work. The result is not at all efforts of one man job and is
related with the contribution of all. This could be defined as man contributes his or her
efforts and system would achieve the target. Therefore, success must be shared among
all stakeholder who has been contributing their efforts for the achievement of the
assigned task. Similarly, failures should also be accepted as the part of his or her failure
as team member. The system is governed by the hierarchy, and generally consists of
authority, manager and worker. The roll of each person as authority, as manager or as
worker is well defined in a constitutional system which is backbone of the country. If
results are achieved, highest ranking person holding the position gets the maximum
advantage because he or she has greater responsibility. Similarly, if expected results are
not achieved and failure is the outcome, who should be blamed? Speaking under defined
constitutional system, the highest authority who has greater responsibility must gets
maximum blame. It is natural phenomena, system shares the success or failure, it does
not matter who is doing what. If higher authority did a minor mistake, it has greater
impact on the result but if junior most authority or manager or worker did the mistake,
the impact would be less. As a natural undefined rule, higher the position-higher the
impact and lower the position-lower the impact would bear the system. Under such
undefined natural rule who should have greater knowledge and who should have lesser
knowledge. It is highest ranking person holding the highest position must have greater
knowledge compared to lower rank person under a hierarchy based system.

ii. Comment-2. Now the provision of instruction may kindly be examined, it is

responsibility of the reporting and reviewing authority to give counseling and proper
guidance to officers reported upon for improvement of their performance. Undersigned
never get any displeasure from the reporting or reviewing officer during the period
reported upon. Many meetings, discussions were held but undersigned never noticed any
displeasure other than instructions or guidance. Such instructions or guidances are part
of success or failure. Undersigned never got any warning or notice alarming for APAR
grading below the bench mark. The grading below six is consider as debarment from
carrier progression. Undersigned is a senior administrative grade officer and achieved
this position through qualification, experiences and hard work assessed by DOT, UPSC
and DOPT. Therefore, grading given by Reporting officer and Reviewing officer as
4.996 below the bench mark of six shall debar undersigned from the carrier progression.
This cannot be part of natural justice that if the carrier is spoiled, at least one notice
should be served on undersigned to explain his position before assessment of grading
below bench mark of six. The reporting officer and Reviewing officers have full
authority to assess the performance based on their perception minimum or maximum
above the bench mark fixed that is minimum six and maximum 10. Undersigned work
hard holding the existing position for the APAR grading above six. Any grading below
the bench of six must be objectively assessed taking into consideration of all factors
 directly or indirectly contributing the performance including compliance of natural
justice. Therefore, assessment made below the benchmark of six is a subjective
assessment and cannot be said as objective or impartial assessment. As the superior
officer functions through his subordinates, he also gets credit for the good work done by
them. The maximum failure or success should go to the senior officer who is assessing
the APAR. If the objective assessment is not done taking into consideration of all factors
directly or indirectly contributing the success or failure or law of the natural justice is
not followed by the Reporting Officer, it ts duty of Reviewing Officer to correct such
lapses because he has greater responsibility and knowledge to examine the case
objectively. It seems that Reporting as well as Reviewing officer have assessed the
APAR jointly and subjectively targeting the undersigned to settle some personal score
best known to them. The first part of APAR for the part period from 01/04/2015 to
30/06/2015 assessed by first Reporting Officer as 7.9 above the benchmark of six and
second part of APAR for the part period from 01/07/2015 to 31/03/2016 assessed by
second Reporting Officer as 4.996 below the benchmark of six have been further
assessed by Reviewing officer as 4.996 below the benchmark of six in both part having
lessor observation period from 01/04/2015 to 31/01/2016 than the full period from
01/04/2015 to 31/03/2016. The assessment done by the Reviewing Officer in the
individual columns of Part-3-A-B-C of APAR in both part period is the same mark
given the second Reporting Officers though the targets and achievements in both part of
the APAR is different. It seems that Reviewing Officer does not apply his mind
objectively, may be because of some preoccupation in some other area of works at the
time of writing the APAR and have written the APAR hurriedly ignoring the fact that it
is the case of below benchmark APAR where laid down instructions including
procedures for compliance of natural justice are not followed by the Reporting Officer.

2. Instruction: The system of APAR on the performance of Government servants is a means

to an end and not an end in itself. The ultimate goal is to optimize the achievement of
Government policies and programmes. This is possible only if the APAR lead to the
optimization of the performance of the concerned Government servants. The main focus of
the Reporting Officer should, therefore, be developmental rather than judgmental. The
APAR should be a true indicator of the achievement of the Government servant; it should
not be a mere tool to control or discipline him.

i. Comment: The ultimate goal of Government policies and programs in general is

prosperous life in the country as the final output. Therefore, every one must fulfill his or
her obligations to get his or her right defined by the constitution of the country.
Therefore, APAR should have been written by the Reporting and Reviewing officer for
the development. The targets and achievements mentioned under the given constraint
with special achievement of undersigned have been accepted by the Reporting and
Reviewing Officers. On primafacie examination of both part of APAR, the lay man
assessment qualifies the grading above the benchmark of six. The APAR graded as
4.996 by both Officers cannot be considered as developmental in such circumstances.
This could be judgmental decision merely a tool to control or discipline the
subordinates. There could be some individual differences on some areas of work and this
must be accepted as healthy and natural differences for further developmental rather than
taking to the egoistic level. The actual human action is generated by the perceived
knowledge within the human being that could be different in different person and may
lead to some healthy differences. Undersigned belongs to different cadre of Central
Government than the Reporting or Reviewing Officer and is being utilized for the
services of DOT by cabinet order till the completion of cadre review. The regular
posting of undersigned is still pending as on date _________ and Broad functional
 Responsibility has been assigned without definition, without functional power, without
addition of post in the channel of submission, without personal staffs required for Senior
Administrative Grade Officer. Undersigned did not have required office for some period
in the past. NIC, Civil and Electrical wing were directly entrusted the targeted work,
only persuasion and monitoring works were assigned to undersigned. There are many
such factors which are not considered for the objective assessment of the undersigned.
Some negative personality compared to positive personality reflected in the pen picture
column of the both part of APAR is not complete reflection of performance of
undersigned in such circumstances which is negligible compared to the achievements
made by the undersigned with bare minimum logistics and almost zero functional power.
Such assessment made by Reporting and Reviewing Officer does not qualify below
benchmark assessment in such circumstances.

3. Instruction: The system of APAR has two principal objectives and the Reporting Officer
should have a very clear perception of these objectives. The first and foremost is to improve
the performance of the subordinate in his present job. The second objective is to assess the
potentialities of the subordinate and prepare him through appropriate feed back and
guidance for future possible opportunities in service. To a great extent, the second objective
is dependent on the achievement of the first.

i. Comment: Both objective could not meet in the instant case. Neither guidance nor
instruction in this regard were ever given. In some rare cases some fault finding were
noticed. No efforts were made by Reporting officer to improve the performance of
undersigned before writing second part of APAR below the bench mark of six. No
notice, no instruction, no warning no guidance as the feedback either in verbal or in
writing were issued to write APAR below the benchmark of six. The Reporting officer
was fully satisfied and en-lighted with the performance of undersigned during the period
reported upon.

4. It is the duty of the superior officer to give the subordinate a clear understanding of the tasks
to be performed and to provide requisite resources for his performance. The subordinate is
required to contribute to the best of his capacity to the qualitative and quantitative
achievement of the given tasks making optimum use of the resources provided. Also, both
the superior and his subordinate have to be necessarily aware of the ultimate goal of their
organization, which can be achieved only through the joint efforts of both of them. This is
the basic philosophy underlying any system of APAR.
i. Comments
ii. No interaction of such sort ever happened

5. The Reporting Officer, at the beginning of the year has to set quantitative/physical targets in
consultation with each of the Government servants, whose reports he is required to write.
Performance appraisal is meant to be a joint exercise between the Government servant
reported upon and the Reporting Officer. While fixing the targets, priority should be
assigned item-wise taking into consideration the nature and the area of the work. The APAR
is initiated by the Government servant to be reported upon himself, who gives a brief
description of his duties, specifies the targets set for him wherever applicable, achievements
against each targets, the shortfalls, if any, constraints encountered and areas where the
achievements have been greater.
i. Comments
ii. No meeting of such sort ever happened to fix targets or interactive discussion took place
Matter was always discussed for slippage of targets only that too seldom
iii.
6. The officers at both Reporting and Reviewing levels are required to have at least three
months experience of supervising the work and conduct of the Government servant reported
upon, before they can record their assessment on the performance of the Government
servant.
i. Comments
ii. The service period was 9 months for reporting and more than two yrs for reviewing.

7. Assessment of the performance of a Government servant at more than one level has been
prescribed as a general rule with a view to ensure maximum objectivity. While it might be
difficult for an officer to have a detailed knowledge of the qualities of a Government servant
two levels below him, his over-all assessment of the character, performance and ability of
the Government servant reported upon is vitally necessary as a built-in corrective. The
judgment of the immediate superior can sometimes be too narrow and subjective to do
justice to the Government servant reported upon. The Reviewing Officer should, therefore,
consider it his duty to personally know and form his judgment of the work and conduct of
the Government servant reported upon. He should exercise positive and independent
judgment on the numerical grading given by the Reporting Officer and remarks of the
Reporting Officer under the various detailed headings in the form of Report as well as on the
pen picture, and express clearly his agreement or disagreement with these remarks. The
Reviewing Officer is also free to make his own remarks on points not mentioned by the
Reporting Officer. Such additional remarks would, in fact, be necessary where the Report of
the Reporting Officer is too brief, vague or cryptic. However, the remarks of the Reviewing
Officer himself should not be vague or self-contradictory to another remark given by
himself in the APAR.
i. Comments
ii. Reviewing officer has no personal view which is apperent from his comments.He has no
vision at all moreover he has dittoe what reporting officer has commented.

8. Performance assessment should be used as a tool for career planning and training, rather
than a mere judgmental exercise. Reporting Authorities should realize that the objective is to
develop an officer so that he/she realizes his/her true potential. It is not meant to be a fault
finding process but a developmental tool. The Reporting Authority, and the Reviewing
Authority should not shy away from reporting shortcomings in performance, attitudes or
overall personality of the officer reported upon.
i. Comments
ii. Short comings by the reviewing officer and reoprtingf officers are very narrow and
subjective.

9. All officers are required to develop a work plan for the year and agree upon the same with
the reporting officer. The work plan should incorporate the relative annual work rhythm and
budgetary cycle. This exercise is to be carried out at the beginning of the year. In case of a
change of the reporting officer during the year, the work plan agreed with the previous
reporting officer would continue to apply. The work plan agreed upon at the beginning of
the year has to be reviewed again during the month of September/October as a mid-year
exercise and finalized by 31 st October. Based on this review the work plan may undergo
some changes from that originally prepared.
i. Comments
ii. No work plan was prepared in period reported upon only legacy items were carried
forward

10. The work plans may be submitted to the reviewing authority for his/her perusal and custody.
The performance appraisal form provides for an assessment of the accomplishments vis-à-
vis the work plan agreed at the commencement of the year and reviewed mid-year.
i. Comments
ii. No such exercise happened