Kerala Excise Commissioner post should be filled with IAS officer: CAT

Kochi (Kerala), Mar 6 (PTI) The CAT on Friday held that 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 of judicial member Justice Sunil Thomas and administrative member V Rama Mathew said that cadre posts can only be filled up and held by IAS officers and if any of them are held by non-IAS or retired IAS officers, "they shall stand removed forthwith and posts shall remain vacant".

The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT's) ruling will have a bearing 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 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 up 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," the CAT bench said.

It further said that "if any of the said posts is held by non-IAS officers or retired IAS officers, they shall stand removed forthwith and posts shall remain vacant".

In such circumstances, the government shall make alternate arrangements of charge 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 up 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 was "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 here have been frequent transfers of IAS officers in Kerala without recommendation of the CSB.

They had further alleged that even though sufficient number of IAS officers were available in 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. PTI HMP KH