HYDERABAD: Registering a strong protest against the proposed amendments to the All India Service (AIS) cadre rules on Central deputation of officers by the Centre, Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said the amendments were against the federal spirit of the Constitution, both in letter and spirit and strain the Centre and state relationship.
The CM in his letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday asked the Union government to desist from the proposed amendments in the interest of administrative fairness.
The Centre has recently proposed to amend Rule 6 (deputation of cadre officers) of the Indian Administrative Service Rules 1954. With this, the Centre need not take the state government’s consent to send an AIS officer on central deputation. The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) wrote to all the states seeking their opinion on this before January 28. Several state CMs were opposing the Centre’s proposal on deputations.
“The proposed amendment to the AIS cadre rules is nothing but amending the Constitution of India relating to the Centre-state relations. Instead of such a backdoor method of amending the AIS service rules, it should muster courage to amend the provisions by the Parliament,” KCR said.
While terming it as a dangerous move (amendment), which is against the constitutional framework and spirit of cooperative federalism, KCR said if the proposed amendments are affected by the Centre, the state would be reduced to an insignificant entity.
The CM said the proposal was aimed at indirect control by the Centre on the officers working in the states and also amounts to interfering in the functioning of the state government. “This is also targeted harassment of officers and their demoralization besides impacting accountability of officers to the state governments. The state government would become helpless entities in AIS officers’ matters,” KCR said.
