9
“THE government means me, not the officers working under me,” a minister in the cabinet of the state of Maharashtra declared. The secretary to the ministry, a respected civil servant had told the minister that he could not cherry-pick projects for clearance but had to follow due process as required by a central statute. He was immediately transferred.
In the same state, another official had started taking action against builders who were duping buyers by selling flats with a smaller carpet area than was promised. He was transferred within a year of his assuming office. He had filed cases against 16 prominent buildings in Mumbai for short-changing the buyers.
In Jammu & Kashmir, a brave civil servant, Muhammad Iqbal Khanday opted for voluntary retirement from the post of chief secretary because he had “been reduced to a stenographer” by the PDP-BJP coalition government. He was “not consulted in decision-making”. Things are no better at the centre, either. Bureaucrats are seeking postings in their cadre states.
The Indian constitution contains elaborate provisions for the security of tenure of civil servants and for the proper transaction of government business which ensures against personal rule.
The rules of business prescribe clearly the respective roles and functions of ministers and civil servants. Their raison d’être was fully explained by the Supreme Court of India in 1970. “The minister is not expected to burden himself with the day-to-day administration. His primary function is to lay down the policies and programmes of his Ministry while the Council of Ministers settle the major policies and programmes of the government.
The respective roles of ministers and civil servants are clearly stated.
“When a civil servant takes a decision, he does not do it as a delegate of his minister to call for any file in his ministry and pass orders. He may also issue directions to the officers in his ministry regarding the disposal of government business generally or as regards any specific case, subject to that overall power, the officers designed by the ‘rules’ or the standing orders, can take decisions on behalf of the government. These officers are the limbs of the government and not its delegates.”
Ministers lay down policies. They are not supposed to decide individual cases; for example whether to grant a permit or licence to an individual industrialist.
B.K. Nehru of the Indian Civil Service (now the Indian Administrative Service, or IAS )wrote. “The root of the maladministration from which, all are agreed, India is suffering has been caused by the increasing practice of ministers not to concern themselves so much with policy as with individual cases. There are many reasons why ministers prefer to decide individual cases instead of formulating policy….
“Another reason for ministers interfering in individual cases is to gain, to keep, political support — something that is of prime importance in an era of chameleon-like changes in political loyalties. The financial corruption prevalent among many of the several hundred ministers who are normally in office in this country has reached scandalous proportions. A minister who refrains from deciding individual cases is likely to remain a poor man.”
The minister has three powers which he abuses to suborn the civil servant — the powers of transfer, suspension and promotion.
In Britain, B.K. Nehru pointed out: “All first appointments are made by an independent non-political civil service commission. The subsequent career of the civil servant does not depend on any minister, but on a group of civil servants themselves.
“All cases of appointments, postings, transfers, promotion and disciplinary action are decided by the head of the civil service department, in consultation with a group of senior permanent secretaries. For the senior-most appointments the approval of the prime minister (but no other minister) is taken and, as a matter of convention, it is very seldom that this is not given.”
One of the framers of India’s constitution, Vallabhbhai Patel foresaw the peril to the entire democratic system if the independence of the civil service is undammed. “I see a tendency today that in several provinces the services are set upon and told ‘No, you are servicemen, you must carry out our orders’.
“The Union will go — you will not have a united India, if you have not a good all-India service which has the independence to speak out its mind, which has a sense of security that you will stand by your word...
“Today, my secretary can write a note opposed to my views. I have given that freedom, to all my secretaries. I have told them, ‘if you do not give your honest opinion for fear that it will displease your minister, please then you had better go. I will bring another secretary’. I will never be displeased over a frank expression of opinion.”
The writer is an author and a lawyer based in Mumbai.
Published in Dawn, October 17th , 2015
On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play
