Six IAS officers’ seniority matter with caretaker CM

The issue of the tussle over the seniority of six IAS officers from the 1990 batch will now be decided by the caretaker Chief Minister, Nayab Singh Saini, or by whoever takes oath after the October 8 election results.

The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) had asked Haryana Chief Secretary (CS) TVSN Prasad to decide the case of inter-se seniority among the 1990-batch IAS officers, considering Rule 6 of the IAS (Regulation of Seniority) Rules, 1987, which deals with the fixation of seniority for officers transferred to another cadre.

No clarity on next Chief Secy

• Chief Secretary TVSN Prasad is retiring on October 31, so any change in the seniority list could impact the selection of the next Chief Secretary, as he or she is likely to be selected from the 1990 batch
• Additionally, the post of Financial Commissioner Revenue (FCR) in Haryana, which usually goes to the senior-most IAS officer after the Chief Secretary, has been kept vacant
• The entire issue has arisen because three IAS officers from the 1990 batch — Ankur Gupta, Anurag Rastogi and Raja Sekhar Vundru — have challenged the current gradation list

In a letter dated August 21, Under Secretary, DoPT, Kavita Chauhan, informed the CS that the gradation list “is prepared by the state government every year in accordance with Rule 5 read with Rule 6 of the IAS (Regulation of Seniority) Rules, 1987.” After over a month, on October 1, the Chief Secretary’s office wrote to the DoPT requesting a copy of the orders issued in compliance with the judgment dated December 16, 1993, passed by the CAT Chandigarh bench, concerning the allotment of the Haryana cadre and the seniority list related to IAS Sudhir Rajpal. Additionally, it was requested that the state government be informed whether IAS Sumita Misra was initially allocated to any other cadre before her services were placed in the Haryana cadre; if so, the relevant documents should be furnished.

Also, on October 4, the Chief Secretary presented the matter to caretaker CM Nayab Saini. Therefore, either he will make the decision, or the new CM will do so.

Present Chief Secretary TVSN Prasad is retiring on October 31, so any change in the seniority list could impact the selection of the next Chief Secretary, as he or she is likely to be selected from the 1990 batch. Additionally, the post of Financial Commissioner Revenue (FCR) in Haryana, which usually goes to the senior-most IAS officer after the Chief Secretary, has been kept vacant.

The entire issue has arisen because three IAS officers from the 1990 batch — Ankur Gupta, Anurag Rastogi and Raja Sekhar Vundru — have challenged the current gradation list, claiming that Sudhir Rajpal and Sumita Misra, who are currently placed above them, should be placed below them since they were transferred from the Himachal Pradesh (HP) and Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) cadres, respectively, to Haryana.

Their letters, dated March 1 and March 22, to the Chief Secretary stated that according to Rule 6 (3) of the Indian Administrative Service (Regulation of Seniority) Rules, 1987, “if an officer is transferred from one cadre to another at his request, he shall be assigned a position in the gradation list of the cadre to which he is transferred below all the officers of his category borne on that cadre who have the same year of allotment.”

In response, Sudhir Rajpal submitted on May 9 that the CAT judgment, dated December 16, 1993, in his case indicated that he was to be allotted to the Haryana cadre, which is his home state, given his application to the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) within 10 days of the publication of the final merit list. Misra, in her reply dated June 3, had asserted that the case of Gupta, Rastogi, and Vundru rested on the claim that she was transferred from another cadre to Haryana at her request, thus making Rule 6(3) applicable. She pointed out that in the Provisional Cadre Allocation Order (November 1990), she was allotted to Haryana state ab initio, which was subsequently confirmed in the Final Cadre Allocation Order (December 1991).