SC asks Centre to respond to plea by IAS/IPS offcers

The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Union government to respond to a plea made by a group of IAS and IPS officers of the 2018 batch for a fresh chance to exercise preferences on cadre allocation after about 20 similarly placed officers were granted the same benefit by the top court on May 17.

A bench of Justices Deepak Gupta and Surya Kant asked Additional Solicitor General Vikramjit Banerjee, appearing for the Department of Personnel and Training, to file the response.

The court put the writ petition filed by Pankaj and four others for consideration in the second week of July.

Senior advocate Sanjay Hegde, appearing for the petitioners, said our grievance is that the Centre has given concession to some candidates only. Banerjee, for his part, said the petitioners can't seek review of the May 17 order by filing a writ petition.

The top court had on May 17 modified the Delhi High Court's judgement that had quashed cadre allocation of IAS and IPS officers of the 2018 batch. The court allowed the Union government's plea that about 20 selected candidates, who challenged an office memorandum on the allocation of cadre, would be accommodated, by giving them fresh choices.

"This will be done by increasing one post in the respective state cadres this year, which will have to be adjusted in coming years," the bench had recorded the submission by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta.

The court termed the decision made by the Union government during the course of hearing itself as having been taken in "exemplary fairness".

It, however, clarified that such accommodation was being made in the exceptional case and will not be treated as a precedent for other candidates of the same batch or in future.

In their fresh petition, the candidates contended that they had been allocated less preferred cadres though candidates situated similar to them have been given more preferred cadres.

The candidates contended the cadre allocation policy was implemented in violation of the principle of equality in as much, as, the more meritorious candidates, who have ranked higher in Civil Services Examination 2017, have been denied allocation to cadres for which they had given their preferences.

The court had earlier found the language of office memorandum of September 5, 2017, related to cadre allocation, was "extremely vague."