Centre Challenges Delhi HC Judgment Quashing Cadre Allocation Of IAS, IPS Officers: SC Agrees To Hear On May 17

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear on May 17 the Centre's plea challenging the Delhi High Court's verdict which had quashed cadre allocation of IAS and IPS officers of 2018 batch.

The matter was mentioned for urgent listing before a bench comprising Justices Indira Banerjee and Sanjiv Khanna.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the bench that the high court had asked the government to redo the entire exercise.

Mehta told the court that those selected under the cadre in 2018 batch have undergone training and were supposed to start joining their respective cadres from May 10.

In a major embarrassment for the Centre, the Delhi High Court on May 3 quashed the cadre allocations made by the Centre of the IAS officers and IPS officers of the 2018 batch under the new cadre allocation policy as being unfair and illegal and ordered fresh cadre allocation.

Holding that cadre allocation is a matter which would affect the career of the officers for all times to come, a bench of Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Rekha Palli has directed the Centre to undertake fresh cadre allocation of the successful candidates allocated to the IAS and IPS, according to their merit and by taking into consideration the preferences given by the candidates, irrespective of whether they have filled "99" in any of the zones or cadres."99" was the option of placing zones and cadres under non-preferred category.

"…we are inclined to allow these writ petitions and to quash the cadre allocations made by the respondents of the IAS Officers vide communication dated 03.12.2018, and the IPS Officers vide OM dated 19.12.2018. We, accordingly, direct so," ordered the bench.

The decision of the court comes on four separate petitions which challenged the "unfair" cadre allocation to Indian Police Service (IPS) on the basis of the results of the Civil Services Examination (CSE), 2017 and sought direction to the Centre to issue a new list allocating the respective cadres to the selected IPS candidates in the CSE, 2017, purely on the basis of merit and preferences indicated in the online form, by correctly interpreting the Office Memorandum (OM) dated 05.09.2017.

The petitioner rued that the interpretation and implementation of the Cadre Allocation Policy-2017 resorted to by the respondents is unreasonable and arbitrary since the more meritorious candidates have been denied the cadres to which they were otherwise entitled according to their preference, and the same have been allocated to the less meritorious candidates.

"We are inclined to grant relief to the petitioners considering that they have approached this Court at the very earliest and at a stage when neither the IAS officers, nor the IPS officers of the 2018 batch have commenced their on-site training which are cadre specific. We also accept the submission of the petitioners that cadre allocation is a matter which would affect their careers for all times to come, and re-allocation of cadres by the respondents should not take much time considering that the same is done electronically, i.e. through the computer program or software.The respondents are already possessed of the requisite data in this regard.

"We, therefore, direct the respondents to undertake fresh cadre allocation of the successful candidates allocated to the IAS and IPS, according to their merit and by taking into consideration the preferences given by the candidates irrespective of whether they have filled "99" in any of the zones or cadres. If a candidate is not able to get any of the preferred cadres according to his rank, cadre allocation in respect of such a candidate may be resorted to in the manner set out in para 4 of OM dated 05.09.2017, i.e. he may "be allotted along with other such candidates in the order of rank to any of the remaining cadres, arranged in alphabetical order, in which there are vacancies in his category if allocation of all the candidates who could be allotted to cadres in accordance with their preference," ordered the court.

It is to be noted that the impugned Office Memorandum introduced a new cadre allocation policy which divided all states/ joint cadres into five zones. According to the said policy, the candidates were required to first give their choice in the descending order of preference from amongst the various Zones. Thereafter the candidates will indicate one preference of cadre from each preferred zone. The candidates will indicate their second cadre preference for every preferred zone thereafter. Similar process will continue till a preference for all the cadres is indicated by the candidate.

If a candidate does not give any preference for any of the zones/cadres, it will be presumed that he has no specific preference for those zones/cadres and accordingly, if he is not allocated to any one of the cadres for which he has indicated the preference, he shall be allotted along with other such candidates in the order of rank to any of the remaining cadres, arranged in an alphabetical order, in which there are vacancies in his category after allocation of all the candidates who can be allotted to cadres in accordance with their preference.

The petitioners submitted that the respondents have not allocated the cadres to them as per their declared policy of merit- cum-preferences and, even though they were higher in merit and ought to have been allocated the cadres as per their respective preferences—despite the availability of vacancies in the preferred cadres when their respective turns came for consideration according to their respective merit, they were not allocated their preferred cadres and were allocated cadres which they had not opted for.

On the other hand, candidates who ranked lower in merit, when compared to them, were allocated cadres which they had individually given their preferences for and, therefore, the method of allocation of cadres resorted to by the respondents is unfair, unjust, arbitrary and illegal.

One of the petitioners told the court that he submitted his preferences for the states/cadres Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and several others. Even though, he was not allocated to one of those cadres, several other candidates, much lower in merit, have been allocated to the said cadres.

"We agree with the petitioners that the interpretation and implementation of the Cadre Allocation Policy – 2017 resorted to by the respondents is unreasonable and arbitrary since the more meritorious candidates have been denied the cadres to which they were otherwise entitled according to their preference, and the same have been allocated to the less meritorious candidates. There can be no gain saying that the common thread running in the said Cadre Allocation Policy – 2017 is to reward merit. The more meritorious candidates are entitled to consideration for allocation of cadres before the less meritorious candidates are considered. This is clear from the overall scheme/policy and is specifically set out at the end of paragraph 10. That principle has been clearly breached by the respondents due to the manner in which they have interpreted and implemented the OM dated 05.09.2017," held the bench.

The court also noted that the object and purpose of the new Cadre Allocation Policy – 2017 was never made public by the respondents.

With PTI Inputs