The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) on Friday came down harshly on the state government's arbitrary and frequent transfers of IAS officers and invalidated the multiple transfer orders served on Agriculture principal secretary and Agriculture Production Commissioner B Ashok.

The CAT ordered that all postings and transfers of IAS officers, whether they have completed a minimum tenure of two years or not in a post, should be made only on the recommendation of the Civil Services Board (CSB). 

The CSB was constituted in 2014 after the Supreme Court established the "necessity of minimum tenure" for civil servants. 

Ashok, while holding the post of Agriculture Principal Secretary, was transferred and posted as the Agriculture Production Commissioner (APC) on February 7, 2023. Before he could complete a minimum tenure of two years, he was transferred on January 9, 2025, to the Local Self Government Department and, without even asking his consent as is required by law, was told to occupy a freshly created post called Local Self Government Reforms Commission.

Ashok moved the CAT and secured an interim stay. In June last year, Ashok tried to get a central deputation to VSSC as Chief Controller, but the Chief Secretary refused to give him vigilance clearance.

In August, even while the interim order that stayed his transfer was in operation, he was served another transfer order. This time as Chairman and Managing Director of Kerala Transport Development Finance Corporation. He secured a stay for this, too.

A month later on September 15, the CAT stay still in place, an order was issued transferring and posting Ashok as Principal Secretary, Personnel and Administrative Reforms Department. None of these transfer orders were made after securing the nod of the Civil Services Board (CSB).  The CAT in its Friday order has nullified all these transfer orders.

The state government argued before the CAT that the sanction of the CSB was not required for all IAS appointments. The CSB needs to be consulted only for initial appointment to a cadre and premature transfers. 

However, Rule 7 of Administrative Service (Cadre) Rules, 2014, says that "All appointments of cadre officers shall be made on the recommendation of the Civil Services Board". The government took the stand that every transfer or administrative reallocation could not be treated as an appointment. Such a wide interpretation of  the government said, was not conducive to efficient administration.

The CAT found this "narrow" definition of appointments unacceptable. It said that the initial recruitment/appointment of IAS officers is done by the Centre and all further appointments to different cadres and transfers are carried out by the state government by issuing orders under Rule 7. Each new posting was a fresh appointment, the CAT held.

Further, it held that under the Administrative Service (Cadre) Rules, the CSB is defined as making "recommendations for all appointments of cadre officers", irrespective of whether they were initial appointments or premature transfers or transfers after the minimum tenure.

The CAT also pointed out an irony in the state government's argument. Though it argued that CSB's nod was not required for mature transfers, the CAT pointed out that there were cases of officers who had completed their minimum tenure in the various posting-related matters that came before the CSB in Kerala recently. "Evidently, the contrary stand is an afterthought," the CAT said.

After the Supreme Court's 2013 verdict in the T S R Subramanian and Others versus Union of India, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoP&T) had amended cadre rules stipulating that cadre officers of the All India Services should hold a post for at least two years, unless promoted, retired or sent on deputation outside the state or on training beyond two months.

In its 2013 verdict, the SC said: "At present the civil servants are not having stability of tenure, particularly in the state governments where transfers and postings are made frequently, at the whims and fancies of the executive head for political and other considerations and not in public interest."