The year 2015 witnessed an unprecedented action by the civil servants when they proceeded on mass casual leave to register their protest against the Arvind Kejriwal Government’s action to suspend two senior officials of the Home Department. The action by the bureaucrats highlighted the strain in the relationship with the City Government.
It appears to have reached its flash-point over a host of issues. Many bureaucrats fear that if the working relation between the bureaucrats and Government does not improve, it was bound to take a toll on the city’s development. The bureaucrats, who are caught in a catch-22 situation between the AAP and the Central Government, feel that both had failed them as none have extended them open support. Officials feel that lieutenant Governor should come forward to protect bureaucrats.
The genesis of the recent strike lied in the fact that the two DANICS officers had refused to follow the instructions of Home Minister Satyendra Jain, who had directed them to follow the instructions of the Delhi Cabinet to issue orders pertaining to the pay revision of prosecutors and Tihar jail employees in the national Capital.
The bureaucrats had refused to sign any such order as it has no approval of lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung and orders can not be issued to bypass him. Perturbed over the refusal of his officers to sign any such order, the Minister himself signed the suspension orders of his two special secretaries. But the Union Home Ministry, which is the cadre controlling authority of the bureaucrats, immediately declared as null and void the orders of the Minister, saying he has no power to dismiss or suspend any civil servant as the MHA was the only competent authority to take any such action.
While the AAP Government hogged headlines for its direct confrontation with senior IAS officers like KK Sharma, Dharampal, Shakuntala D Gamlin and Anindo Majumdar, things came to such a pass that for the first time the Delhi Government issued a show-cause notice to its Chief Secretary KK Sharma for routing certain files related to the Delhi Police through Raj Niwas. The trust deficit between the AAP Government and senior IAS officers even forced the administration to start promoting DANICS officers.
At that point of time, Gamlin had reportedly warned a senior DANICS officer that he should not follow any AAP Government direction, which was against the rules. She had reportedly told the officer that “people would realise in future that the AAP Government was not going to defend anyone.” “Only the IAS officers are going to defend you,” she said to have told the officer.
A senior bureaucrat said that when the DANICS officers were suspended by the city Minister, it was only the IAS officers who lobbied with the Centre for the revocation of their suspension order. Since a strong section of the DANICS officers have joined hands with the IAS bureaucrats, the AAP Government was now reportedly trying to promote 22,000-odd DASS-cadre officials, who form the backbone of the city administration. The AAP Cabinet has already agreed in principal to revise their pay scale.