New rules on bureaucrats transfer creates confusion

NEW DELHI: The Centre has notified new rules to exclude ministers from a panel that decides on transfers of IAS and IPS officers in the joint cadre of some states, which was being seen as an attempt to keep out Aam Aadmi Party's ministers from it.

However, senior government officials denied it saying that the rules do not apply to joint cadre of union territories which include Delhi.

As per All India Services (Joint Cadres) Rules, 1972, there shall be a Committee consisting of a representative of each of the governments of the constituent states, to be called the Joint Cadre Authority (JCA), for postings of Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Police Service (IPS) and Indian Forest Service (IFoS) officers .

The representatives of the governments of the constituent states may either be members of an all-India service (IAS, IPS or IFoS) or ministers in the council of ministers of the constituent states, the rules say.

However, the new rules notified on Tuesday by Department of Personnel and Training ( DoPT) says the representatives of the governments of the constituent states "shall be members of All India Service)". The new rules have excluded participation of a minister in the JCA.

Following the change in rules, there was a speculation that the new rules apply to the Delhi government or those belonging to AGMUT cadre ( Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram and Union Territories). The union territories include Delhi, Andman and Nicobar Islands, Puducherry, Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Chandigarh and Lakshadweep.

The All India Services (Joint Cadres) Rules, 1972 also say that "They shall apply to a joint cadre constituted for any group of states other than the joint cadre of Union Territories".

"The new change apply to only Assam-Meghalaya cadre where two governments are involved," a senior DoPT official said.

The Centre has recently bifurcated Manipur-Tripura cadre.

There are 26 cadres for the all India services and AGMUT is one of them.