Kochi (Kerala), March 6 The CAT ruled on Friday that the posts of Excise Commissioner, KILA Director, and Director General of IMG in Kerala are IAS cadre posts and cannot be filled by non-IAS officers.
The tribunal's Ernakulam bench, comprising judicial member Justice Sunil Thomas and administrative member V Rama Mathew, said that cadre posts can only be filled and held by IAS officers, and if any of these posts are held by non-IAS or retired IAS officers, "they shall stand removed forthwith, and the posts shall remain vacant".
The Central Administrative Tribunal's ruling will have an impact on the current posting of senior IPS officer M R Ajithkumar as Excise Commissioner.
The tribunal further ruled that all appointments, transfers, and postings of IAS officers in Kerala, whether on completion of tenure or not, shall be done in consultation with the Civil Services Board (CSB) and in accordance with the procedure contemplated under the relevant provisions of the IAS (Cadre) Rules, 2014 and the Schedule thereunder.
It directed that the posts notified as cadre posts by the Union government shall be filled only by IAS officers.
"It is declared that the posts of Excise Commissioner, Director Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA), and Director General, Institute of Management in Government (IMG) are IAS posts," the CAT bench said.
It further said that "if any of these posts is held by non-IAS or retired IAS officers, they shall stand removed forthwith, and the posts shall remain vacant".
In such circumstances, the government shall make alternate arrangements for those posts, the tribunal directed, while making it clear that decisions taken by such officers till date will stand saved.
The tribunal also declared that filling any IAS cadre post by non-IAS or retired IAS officers, by redesignation, renaming, or by any other method whatsoever, and keeping the IAS cadre post vacant, is "irregular and deemed to be a colourable exercise of executive functions".
"There will be a direction to the state government to forward regularly, quarterly reports as contemplated under the IAS (Cadre) Rules and a corresponding duty on the Union government to ensure that such reports are duly submitted in the prescribed format," the bench said in its 112-page order.
The CAT's order came on a plea by the Kerala IAS Association and two of its members who had alleged violation of the IAS (Cadre) Rules, 1954 and IAS (Cadre) Amendment Rules, 2014, as well as indiscreet transfers and postings of IAS officers, and filling up of cadre posts with non-IAS officers.
The association and its members had also alleged that there have been frequent transfers of IAS officers in Kerala without recommendation of the CSB.
They had further alleged that even though a sufficient number of IAS officers were available in the Kerala cadre for being appointed to cadre posts, some of such posts were filled up by non-IAS persons or retired IAS officers, without recommendation of the CSB or any justifiable public interest, and "purely on political considerations".
The association and its members also claimed that the state wilfully dismantled the CSB after its two initial meetings in 2014 and 2015 and it was not convened after that.
The state government denied the allegations and told the tribunal that non-IAS or retired IAS officers were not posted against the posts notified for IAS officers, the CSB has not been disbanded, and there was no indiscriminate transfer or posting of IAS officers.
