The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is looking to create a panel of retired senior government officers and public sector undertaking (PSU) officials from which officials would be chosen to conduct departmental inquiries, reports Hindustan Times.

The information about the move was revealed by a senior official of the board. He explained that the validity of the panel would last for three years, while the number of disciplinary cases allocated per inquiry officer would be limited to eight per annum and not four at any given point of time.

“CBSE proposes to prepare a panel of retired officers of the central government, state government and PSUs who retired from the post of Additional Secretary, Joint Secretary, Director and Deputy Secretary or equivalent rank, to be appointed as inquiry officer for the purpose of conducting departmental inquiries in CBSE,” the official detailed.

Already, the board has started inviting applications from retired officers who would be willing to conduct such inquiries. The retired officers would be compensated with honorariums at the official rates.

The performance of the empanelled inquiry officers would be reviewed following the submission of two inquiry reports. The work would be assessed according to parameters such as whether time limits, procedures, etc were adhered to or not. Subsequent grant of cases will depend on such a performance evaluation.