Jaipur: The promotion of non-Rajasthan Administrative Service (RAS) rank officers to IAS rank was stayed by the Rajasthan High Court. The court also issued an order to the Central government not to process the names of those officers sent for promotion by the State government. Apart from this, the court also sought the details from the Screening Committee set up by the State government for shortlisting the names of non-RAS officers for promotion to the IAS rank.
The matter came up for hearing before a division bench comprising Justices Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Praveer Bhatnagar while hearing a petition filed by the Rajasthan Administrative Service body. The court said the State government can promote non-RAS officers to the post of IAS, but it has to explain how the quota was fixed.
Counsel Tanveer Ahmed, on behalf of the petitioner, while pleading before the court said that under the All India Service Act (Rules and Regulations) there was a provision to fill 66.67 per cent of posts through direct IAS cadres and 33.33 per cent should be filled by giving promotion to state cadre officers.
Whereas in exceptional cases, the 33.33 per cent quota can be filled by officers belonging to other services. But, the State government was promoting officers from other services to the IAS cadre every year. On February 17, the State government sent a letter to all departments seeking applications from officers belonging to other services for promotion to the IAS cadre. After shortlisting the names by the Screening Committee, they were sent to the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) for approval.
Additional Advocate General Satyendra Singh Raghav told the court that the State government was giving promotions to state cadre officers as per the IAS Promotion Rules, 1954. Under the rule, the State government can appoint specialist officers from other services to the post of IAS while taking opinions from the Central government.
The court said that even though the government can promote specialist officers from the state to the IAS cadre, but quota cannot be fixed for this. What was the basis of the Screening Committee to decide upon the names of officers belonging to other services and send them to the Central government for approval? The next date of hearing was fixed by the court on July 12.
