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Journalism of Courage
The Government obviously put all political sensitivities aside when it decided to stiffly oppose the appointment of Shashank Shekhar Singh as the Cabinet Secretary of Uttar Pradesh. A reading of the affidavit submitted to a Lucknow court on Monday (in response to a Public Interest Litigation) shows how vehemently the Centre opposed the appointment which it has now termed as “unprecedented” and one which also had grave “financial implications.”
The affidavit, submitted by an official of the Department of Personnel in Lucknow, after seeking legal opinion of Attorney General
The Government went all out against the appointment, especially since Shashank Shekhar Singh had also been bestowed the rank of a Minister and a pay scale higher than that of the Chief Secretary. “This arrangement has removed the distinction between the political executive and the permanent bureaucracy which is the very foundation of the democratic administrative system,” it submitted.
The DoPT has also pointed out that the appointment was an example of how huge financial powers had been vested on a non-cadre officer even as financial accountability for decisions taken by him had not been fixed. The affidavit notes: “The responsibilities and accountability of an IAS officer can always be traced to the respective All India Service Rules which lay down specific framework of conduct, discipline and punishment for acts of misconduct and misdemeanor.”
While listing the objectives of setting up an all-India administrative cadre given by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in 1946 in the Premiers Conference, the DoPT has said that the manner in which the UP Cabinet Secretary’s post overshadowed that of the Chief Secretary was
contrary both to the country’s “Constitutional scheme and the statutory provisions.”
In its strongly-worded legal response to the administrative imbalance introduced by the Mayawati Government, the DoPT stated: “It ( Shashank Shekhar’s Singh’s appointment) tends to undermine the time-tested system of administration and uniformity in the structure of governance accepted by the entire country for appointment of civil servants as envisaged in Article 312 of the Constitution. The state Government cannot be permitted to have a parallel system of state administration alien to our Constitution and statutory provisions.”
To buttress its case, the DoPT has listed landmark rulings of the Supreme Court and high courts where the supremacy of the IAS-cadre has been upheld over similarly injudicious and ultra vires appointments. The practice of appointment of non-cadre officers to cadre posts, the affidavit recalls, was deprecated by the Supreme Court in a case filed by the Tamil Nadu Administrative Service Officers Association wherein the court ruled that such administrative aberrations gave rise to “heartburn and disappointment to the state Civil Servants.”
In another ruling (K Prasad vs Union of India) the Supreme Court had noted that the fixation and review of the cadre postings in a state was the statutory prerogative of the Union Government and that the state Government was required to seek the permission of the Centre, should any temporary additions be made to cadre posts.
