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While recruitment and allotment to a cadre (state) are determined by the Centre, the states determine the work and posting. Hence, All-India Services are carefully balanced between the Centre and the states. India is a quasi-federation, with its executive organised between the Centre and the states. Under Article 309 of the Constitution, the Centre and states are empowered to erect and maintain services for running their administration. Both the Centre and the states exercise full control over their services independently of each other. However, to preserve unity between them, Sardar Patel envisioned the creation of the All-India Services. Unlike a central service or state service, an All-India Service is compositely administered under Article 312. While recruitment and allotment to a cadre (state) are determined by the Centre, the states determine the work and posting. Hence, All-India Services are carefully balanced between the Centre and the states. The Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Police Service (IPS), and Indian Forest Service (IFS) are the three All-India Services.
The IAS is popularly seen as the crown jewel of all services, occupying the highest bureaucratic berths in the district (district magistrate), the state (chief secretary), and the centre (cabinet secretary). Being an All-India Service, officers of the IAS are posted to the states, from where they are deputed to the Centre with the tripartite consent of the officer, the state government and the central government. However, the proposed amendment to Rule 6 of the IAS (Cadre) Rules 1954, seeks to do away with the consent of both the officer and the state government and has drawn a sharp wedge between the Centre and the states along political lines.
At the outset, stripping away the consent of the state government is a move towards greater centralisation in the IAS, bringing it functionally closer to a central service. This has the potential to disrupt the delicate balance between the Centre and states and the sui generis character of the IAS as a composite service, and render Article 312 as a dead letter law.
The reason for the amendment, as declared by the central government, is to ensure adequate availability of IAS officers for central deputation, which at present is “not sufficient to meet the requirement at the Centre”. Therefore, the states have been mandated to ensure adequate availability of IAS officers under the Central Deputation Reserve. However, the central government has gone beyond its declared reason and stretched the cadre rules to also allow for appropriation of IAS officers “in public interest”. Bereft of any limitation on what constitutes “public interest”, the Centre has virtually conferred upon itself the plenipotentiary power to pull out any number of IAS officers from the states.
Because the top bureaucratic brass is composed almost entirely of IAS officers, the states — especially the opposition states — fear losing their key officers to conscribed central deputation. To protect their administration from becoming paralysed, states may resort to altering their Transaction of Business Rules to divest IAS officers of key posts in the state, and vesting the same with the state officers. Alternately, states may conjure provisional berths for retired bureaucrats to re-enter administration as special appointees, outside the cadre rules.
As it is, the implementation of cadre rules is left to the mercy of the states, with the Centre showing a disinclination to enforce them. Some states openly flout the cadre rules with impunity in matters of postings and transfers. The Civil Services Board has been rendered impotent, non-cadre officers are being unilaterally appointed to IAS cadre posts, and the minimum tenure guarantee is openly flouted.
The proposed amendment to the IAS cadre rules portends ill for Sardar Patel’s vision of the All-India Services as a unifying link between the Centre and the states. Not only could it allow distrust to fester in Centre-state relations, it would also result in the functional depreciation of the IAS in the states. It is important for the states to be reassured that they are in control of their administration, and for the service to not lose its relevance.
(The writer is a senior IAS officer. Views are personal)
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