The Ministry of Home Affairs. (File)The central government has observed that “many states routinely appoint IPS officers on promotion to higher grades without adhering” to the provisions related to prior concurrence of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). In a communication sent to the states on September 12, the MHA has pointed out that as per rule 3 (2) of IPS (Pay) Rules, 2016, “the state governments are required to seek prior concurrence of the central government to availability of vacancies in selection grade and above for granting promotion to the IPS officers”.
The MHA has also pointed out two rules in the letter while expressing its observations. Rule 3(2)(ii) of them reads as: “Appointment of a member of the service in the level of selection grade and above shall be subject to availability of vacancies in these grades and for this purpose, it shall be mandatory upon the state cadres or the joint cadre authorities, as the case may be, to seek prior concurrence of the central government on the number of available vacancies in each grade. Any appointment made without obtaining prior concurrence of Government of India shall be liable for cancellation.”
Rule 3 (2) (iii) reads as: “The central government shall accord such concurrence within a period of 30 days from the date of receipt of such references and if the central government does not accord concurrence within a period of said 30 days, the concurrence on availability of vacancies shall be deemed to have been accorded.
“The position emanating as referred to in this clause shall be placed before the screening committee at the time it meets to consider promotion in these grades.”
While insisting that many states appoint officers on promotion to higher grades without adhering to these provisions, the MHA added that “certain state governments seek concurrence only in respect of certain grades”.
The MHA also said: “There have been instances where state governments seek concurrence after actually granting promotion to high scale. States have been providing insufficient inputs making it difficult to process the proposals. Certain states do not provide response to the queries on the matter and thus, the proposals get delayed.”
While referring to the IPS (Pay) Rules, 2016, the MHA has requested the state governments to strictly adhere to the same and send their proposal seeking concurrence of vacancies in selection grade and above of IPS officers by November 15 this year. In the letter, Under Secretary to the central government (MHA), Raman Kumar, mentioned the proposal should invariably contain the details of IPS officers to be considered for promotion against the vacancies to be concurred along with other details.