KOLKATA: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday sent her second letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in seven days, opposing proposed changes in service rules for Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers, which she said, will empower the Centre to transfer IAS officers serving in the cadre to the central government without the concurrence of the officer concerned and the state government.
“This is going to destroy our federal fabric and basic structure of our Constitution too. It is our Constitution which gives the states their powers and functions and it is our Constitution which provides the framework and structure of the all-India services as they exist. The swift unitary turn that the Central government has now proposed will strike at the root of the frame which has existed and worked well since the inception of our democracy,” Banerjee said in her two-page letter to PM Modi.
Mamata Banerjee’s loud protests to the proposed change in the IAS cadre rules come after the Centre in May last year ordered Alapan Bandopadhyay, then serving as chief secretary, to join the union government on central deputation. Banerjee refused to let him go, and Bandopadhyay eventually opted to retire on May 31 rather than take an extension he was given. Bandopadhyay was reappointed as chief adviser to the chief minister and faces disciplinary action for not attending a meeting called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his Bengal visit on May 28.
Under existing rules, officers of the three All India Service (AIS) - the IAS, Indian Police Service (IPS) and Indian Forest Service officers - are attached to a state (or a group of smaller states) as a cadre where they serve unless they opt to serve in the union government. If they do exercise this option, the state concerned has to concur to their request before they can be considered for a posting by the Centre.
{{/usCountry}}Under existing rules, officers of the three All India Service (AIS) - the IAS, Indian Police Service (IPS) and Indian Forest Service officers - are attached to a state (or a group of smaller states) as a cadre where they serve unless they opt to serve in the union government. If they do exercise this option, the state concerned has to concur to their request before they can be considered for a posting by the Centre.
{{/usCountry}}The central government has been facing a shortage of relatively young officers who often prefer to work in the field and state secretariat rather than come to Delhi in the early part of their careers. To be sure, there are also instances where requests from officers to serve in the union government are vetoed or kept on hold.
Banerjee wrote her first letter of objection to Modi on January 13 after the department of personnel and training sought the opinion of all states on the proposed amendments to the IAS (Cadre) Rules. The Congress and Left parties have also opposed the proposals.
Banerjee’s second letter on Thursday referred to some more changes proposed by the Centre. She asked the Centre not to push the states into a movement on this issue and said that once enforced, the new rules may be misused by the party in power at the Centre.
“….I have to write again, further reiterating my points, because the central government has meanwhile further accentuated its stand, proposing yet another revised draft, taking the matter to further non-federal extremes. I find the revised amendment proposal more draconian than the former and indeed its very grain is against the foundations of our federal polity and the basic structure of India’s Constitutional scheme,” Banerjee wrote on Thursday.
“The moot point of the further revised draft proposal is that an officer, whom the Central government may choose to take out of a state to any part of the country without taking his/her consent and without the agreement of the state government under whom he/she is serving may stand released from his/her current assignment forthwith,” the letter said.
“The power proposed to be usurped by the central government by resorting to over-centralisation of powers is going to destroy the morale and freedom of the All India Service officers quite apart from such usurpation being unconstitutional on the face of it. It is going to completely render them and all the state governments at the mercy of the central government since the All India Services serve as the backbone of a state’s administrative machinery. It will hang on the head of each officer of the All India Services like a Damocles sword,” Banerjee said.
“It will create fear psychosis which is bound to impact their performance, effectiveness and accountability to the state government. This will destroy the fundamental principle of the services which postulates that an officer serving in connection with the affairs of the state is accountable to the state government alone,” Banerjee wrote.
“I request you not to take such a measure which will irreparably damage the spirit of mutual accommodation between the Centre and the states which has existed in respect of utilization of services of the All India Services. I request you not to denude the states of their powers over its officers which will have far-reaching consequences for our country. Let us not forget that the proposed amendments are very prone to be misused by the party in power at the Centre. We at the helm of governance of the country should not be misled by immediate gains which may sound tempting but have the potential of causing damage for all times to come,” the Bengal chief minister said.
Stating that the proposed amendments will cause severe damage to the “steel frame” of the nation on its 75th year of Independence, Banerjee requested Modi not to “push us to the point of greater movements on this issue to protect the soul of this great democracy that India is and has been.”
Bengal Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, a known critic of Banerjee, backed her up on this issue.
“This is not a new move by the Centre. It has been trying to control bureaucrats for a long time. We have seen how Bengal’s former chief secretary Alapan Bandopadhyay was harassed,” said Chowdhury.
Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) countered Banerjee, accusing her of stopping IAS officers from opting for central deputation and hurting their careers.
“Many bureaucrats posted in Bengal want to opt for central deputation but the state government has blocked their career growth. These officers are suffering. It is the state that is damaging the principles of our federal system. We support the Centre’s move to help the bureaucracy,” said Bengal BJP’s chief spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya.