In a far-reaching judgement, the Supreme Court on Thursday set a three-month deadline for the Centre and State Governments to put in place a system to ensure a minimum fixed tenure for bureaucrats.
It also directed the bureaucrats not to take verbal orders from their political masters and empowered them to record in writing the oral instructions on files in order to protect them from being victimised for taking a particular decision.
The judgement came on a PIl filed by as many as 83 retired top public servants. The PIl has sought three-fold relief; creation of an independent Civil Service Board (CSB), fixed tenure for civil servants and mandatory recording of all instructions or directions received from political bosses and administrative superiors in writing.
The bench of Justice KS Radhakrishnan and Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose agreed that in the present political scenario the role of civil servants has become very complexand onerous. In that context it noted that there was deterioration of the standards of probity and accountability of civil servants due to political influence.
Rule 3(3)(iii) of All-India Service Rules provides for all communication to bureaucrats to be in writing. The Santhanam Committee on Prevention of Corruption, 1962 also recommended so.
The court ordered States and Centre to issue directions within three months to enforce this rule and said: “Civil servants must be protected against wrongful and arbitrary pressure exerted by the administrative superiors, political executive and other vested interests.”
This would ensure civil servants do not act with vested interest, besides ensuring accountability and upholding institutional integrity, the SC said. Further, by recording orders in writing, citizens’ right to know under RTI would be achieved as there would be no room for “favoritism” and “corruption.”
The SC broadly accepted the other two demands and made its directions to apply uniformly on IAS, IPS and IFS officers. On stability of tenure, the bench noted the trend within State Governments to frequently transfer officers at the whims and fancies of the executive head for political and other considerations. “Repeated shuffling or transfer of the officers is deleterious to good governance.”
Thirteen States agreed on the need to fix a minimum tenure for civil servants that would aid prioritizing social and economic measures, besides, increasing efficiency. The 2nd Administrative Reforms Commission 2008-09 proposed a minimum of two years tenure. States submitted that except for promotion, transfer and posting is done on completion of three year tenure.
With regard to independent CSB, the court directed that it had to be headed by high-ranking serving officers, preferably of the rank of Cabinet Secretary at the Centre and Chief Secretary at State level. In addition, they should be experts in their respective fields. The court said that independent persons or even retired bureaucrats could not head CSB, as the petitioners had demanded, in the absence of any law. In three months the Boards will have to be functional, till Parliament is to enact a law under Article 309 of the Constitution, the court held.