The Arvind Kejriwal Government has set up Civil Services Board (CSB) to fix the tenure of bureaucrats in the national Capital. The Government has appointed Chief Secretary KK Sharma as the board’s chairman, Principal Secretary (Urban Development) Chetan B Sanghi as its member and Principal Secretary (services) Rajendra Kumar as its member secretary.
A notification to this effect has already been issued to empower the Board to recommend and fix transfer and postings of the cadre officers. The Board can examine the cases of officers who are proposed to get transferred before the completion of their minimum tenure. It can recommend the names of officers to the competent authority for transfer before completion of their minimum tenure by placing all the reasons on record in writing. It can also consider the report of the administrative department along with any other inputs it may have from other reliable sources.
A section of the officers who have been upset over the “treatment being meted out to them” by the newly-elected Government, feel that the board could finally mitigate their problems.
Recently, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had said that “transfer-posting” had become a big industry in Delhi. A senior bureaucrat said that the CSB could play a key role in bringing transparency in transfer and postings of cadre officers.
The transfer and posting of many senior officers had turned into a major battle field with both Jung and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal claiming themselves to be the last authority on taking a call on such issues. The contentious transfer and posting of the ACB chief and the city’s Home Secretary had even unnerved a large number of Government officials. The AAP Government had even directed joint police Commissioner MK Meena not to take charge of the Anti-Corruption Branch. The Government also transferred its Home Secretary Dharam Pal for signing Meena’s posting orders at the behest of the lG. Dharam Pal was even shunted out for not following the CM’s directions. The Government openly targeted Meena as he had superceded Kejriwal’s hand-picked officer SS Yadav.
With the CSB in place, some officers in the administration are apprehensive whether the three-member body would be able to take independent decisions. A senior officer said that the Government has already incorporated Kejriwal’s two key lieutenant’s in the CSB. “Both Sanghi and Kumar are very close to Kejriwal. The presence of both the officers has raised questions whether the board will function freely without any political interference.”
The AAP Government’s move to set up the CSB is in line with the Supreme Court’s directions which had asked the Centre and the States in November 2013 to constitute the body to decide posting of senior administrative, police and forest service officers on a two-year fixed term.
The department of personnel and training (DoPT) had also issued a set of rules for three premier services — IAS, IPS and IFS — which made it clear that the officers would now be spending a minimum of two years in each posting. But the transfers and postings of less than two year tenure would be done by the CSB of the respective States.