Thaindian News

New Delhi, March 4 (IANS) The Supreme Court Friday issued notice to the central and state governments and the union territories on a petition by former bureaucrats of all India services seeking guidelines for fixed tenures and insulating the civil services from political pressures.

Justice Dalveer Bhandari and Justice Deepak Verma issued the notice on a petition moved by the former cabinet secretary T.S.R. Subramanian, former ambassador to US Abid Hussain, former chief election commissioners T.S. Krishna Murthy and N. Gopalaswamy, former Manipur governor Ved Prakash Marwah and 78 other officials who belonged to the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and Indian Police Service (IPS).

The notice comes a day after the Supreme Court termed illegal the appointment of P.J.Thomas, who was involved in a corruption case in Kerala, as the central vigilance commissioner. Thomas had contended that he was the victim of a political row between the ruling party and the opposition in the state.

The court indicated that the petition might be tagged with the matter relating to fixed tenure of the police personnel being heard by the special apex court bench headed by Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia in a petition by the former director general of Uttar Pradesh police Prakash Singh.

The petitioners have sought the court directions making it mandatory for the bureaucrats to put down in writing all the instructions and suggestion they get from their administrative and political bosses, legislators and commercial and business interests or from those wielding influence in the corridors of power.

The petitioners have sought for directions to the centre and state governments to implement the recommendations of the Hota Committee report on civil service reform, the administrative reform commission on central staffing scheme and Santhanam Committee report on the prevention of corruption and Jha Commission report on economic administrative reform commission.

The petitioners have said that various committees and commissions have recommended the setting up of an independent civil services board to check arbitrary and frequent transfer of bureaucrats.

They also sought the court’s guidelines till the central government puts in place a statutory provision for setting up of an independent Civil Services Board, fixed tenure for postings and insulating the bureaucrats from administrative and political pressures.

The absence of safeguards to the bureaucrats leads to weak governance resulting in whimsical intervention guided by personal gains, uncoordinated and wasteful public expenditure, inadequate transparency and lack of accountability, they said.

The petition said the 83 retired senior officials “have served the government of India and the state governments in various capacities and have a collective, hand-on work experience of atleast two thousand five hundred man-years.”

“Having entered the civil services between 1950 and 1972, the petitioners cover a generational time-span and bring to bear a wide range of experience, expertise and domain knowledge in regards to the problem of governance and public administration,” the petition said.