Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala IAS Officers' Association and two serving IAS officers - B Ashok (Agricultural Production Commissioner) and Priyanka G (Director, Women and Child Department) - have approached the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) against the Kerala government's "frequent and arbitrary" transfer orders that have shortened an IAS officer's service period in a cadre post with serious administrative consequences.
This is the first time in the history that IAS officers in Kerala have jointly sought action against a government. It is said that an IAS officer, on an average, spends less than a year in a given cadre post in the state. The legal requirement is two years minimum.
The officers also want the CAT to cancel the appointment of non-IAS officers in IAS cadre posts, like the Excise commissioner and KILA director, and the reappointment of retired IAS officers in posts meant for serving IAS officers, like IMG director general.
Two-year immunity
The IAS officers, in their application submitted to the CAT, have stated that the Supreme Court, in its 2013 landmark judgment in the TSR Subramanian case, had directed the Centre and states to give all civil servants a 'minimum assured tenure' at a particular posting.
Following the apex court verdict, amendments were made to the IAS (Cadre) Rules in 2014. From then on, it was understood that an IAS officer will hold her post for at least two years unless promoted, retired or sent on deputation outside the state or on training beyond two months.
If at all a tenure has to be cut short, it requires the approval of the Civil Services Board. A notification issued by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions on January 28, 2014, states that all appointments of cadre officers should be made on the recommendation of the Civil Service Board (CSB), a three-member body chaired by the Chief Secretary.
Though a CSB was formed in Kerala soon after the notification, the IAS officers say it had become dysfunctional after the first two meetings, the last of which was in 2015. The IAS officers said that chief secretaries had been unable to withstand political pressure.
Short tenures and stray dog menace
The application says that seven persons were posted as director, Scheduled Castes Development, in the past six months. "The average tenure of cadre officers has slipped way below one year against the prescribed minimum of two years," it says.
This figure was arrived at after analysing the tenures of IAS officers in the state between 2016 and 2019. In this period, only 12 of the 126 IAS officers in Kerala have completed more than two years in a post. Two officers had completed more than three years. One was M Sivasankar, who had remained the Chief Minister's principal secretary for over four years.
The officers attribute LDF Government's administrative failures like growing stray dog menace and poor solid waste management, and even corruption at lower levels, to short tenures of IAS officers.
As proof of government arbitrariness, the IAS officers have submitted a copy of a government order on July 7, 2021, that summarily transferred 20 IAS officers, and created two ex-cadre posts (Director of Industries and Commerce and Executive Director, Kudumbashree), without convening the CSB. Another order, in June 2022, transferred two officers without the CSB approval. Yet another order on May 22, 2023, had transferred six IAS officers bypassing the legal route.
Chief Minister's indifference
The application states that such orders are issued "with a view to accommodate persons favoured by the political executive, thus displacing eligible, efficient and righteous serving IAS officers who are entitled to continue for a minimum period of two years in the posts allotted to them".
The IAS Officers' Association is moving the CAT as a last resort.
Its move comes almost a year after it had written to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan detailing the grievances. In a letter dated August 16, 2022, the Association had told the Chief Minister, who is also in charge of the General Administration Department, that certain officers were transferred not once but twice a month.
"Transfers effected without recommendations of the Civil Services Board have caused many inconveniences to the concerned officers, which could be avoided. Apart from orders of transfer in respect of same individuals who stand transferred twice a month, we are faced with instances wherein about 30 IAS officers have been transferred recently after the reopening of schools and colleges," the letter addressed to the Chief Minister last year said.
When there was no response, the Association, during its meeting on June 11, decided to move the CAT.
"Since most civil servants would hesitate to complain against premature transfers and out of the way postings because of potential victimisation in future, the Association has no other remedy than to approach the CAT," the application said.
Anti-encroachment drive
The serving officers are equally disturbed by the government's move to let non-IAS officers and retired IAS officers encroach into domains reserved exclusively for them.
One was the appointment of Mahipal Yadav IPS as Excise Commissioner. IAS officers feel that not even the CSB has the authority to appoint an IPS officer to an IAS cadre post, "especially when there are enough IAS officers to take up the post". In fact, B Ashok, the president of the Association, had officially expressed his willingness for the job.
The Association termed "a naked violation of IAS (Cadre) Rules" the appointment of Joy Elamon, a non-member of any of the All India Services, as Director, Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA). Joy Elamon is a public health expert. The KILA Director, according to the cadre notification issued by the Centre, has to be an IAS officer.
The government further extended Elamon's tenure by an order on May 15. While doing so, his designation was rechristened as 'Director General'. This, IAS officers say, is a sly move to make the post seem different from 'Director', the title of the IAS cadre post. "This is nothing short of a malafide exercise of power by the state government," the IAS officers say in their application.
The serving officers have also questioned the government logic of picking retired IAS officer and former Chief Secretary K Jayakumar to head the Institute of Management in Government (IMG), the notified administrative training institute of Kerala. The administrative training institutes across the country are manned by "the seniormost IAS officers in the respective cadres''.
The serving officers said the government was bestowing undue favours on Jayakumar who had superannuated more than a decade ago in 2011.
In Jayakumar's case, too, like in the case of Elamon, the government has made a designation change to make it seem like a non-cadre post. 'Director General, IMG' was changed to 'Director, IMG'.
"This is done solely with a view to circumvent the IAS (Fixation of Cadre Strength) Regulations, 1955 and appoint a pleasure appointee of political executive to an IAS cadre post that can be filled only by a serving cadre officer," the application says.
