Updated: December 14, 2020 8:39:33 am
Jayalalithaa and Mamata Banerjee in New Delhi in 2012. (Express File)
In the refusal of the West Bengal government led by Mamata Banerjee to send three IPS officers in the central delegation, there is an echo of a similar refusal by the then Tamil Nadu chief minister, J Jayalalithaa, in 2001.
In the current case, the Center has requested that the three IPS officers be sent in delegation to the Government of India following an attack on the caravan of BJP President JP Nadda outside Calcutta; these officers were in charge of security. In its refusal, the West Bengal government has cited a shortage of IPS officers (The Indian Express, December 13).
The Tamil Nadu parallel
Jayalalithaa was sworn in as Chief Minister on May 13, 2001. On the night of June 29-30, the CB-CID of the Tamil Nadu police raided the home of former Chief Minister M Karunanidhi and arrested him along with his colleagues from DMK Murasoli Maran and TR Baalu, then ministers in AB Vajpayee’s NDA government.
It resulted in the removal of Governor Fathima Beevi as the Center was not satisfied with her report. Then-Justice Minister Arun Jaitley said the report “did not reflect the true situation in Tamil Nadu today” and that the governor had “completely failed to fulfill her constitutional obligations.”
Three IPS officers were identified as involved in the raid: then-Chennai Police Commissioner K Muthukaruppan, Joint Commissioner Sebastian George, and Deputy Commissioner Christopher Nelson. Considered close to Jayalalithaa, all of them have since retired. After retiring, Nelson was appointed to the State Planning Commission and later to the State Information Commissioner.
In West Bengal, the officers the Center has sought in the central delegation are Rajeev Mishra (Additional Director General, South Bengal), Praveen Tripathi (Deputy Inspector General, Presidential Rank) and Bholanath Pandey (SP, Diamond Harbor).
As is happening now, the Interior Ministry, then under Lal Krishna Advani, had asked the government of Tamil Nadu to relieve the three officers for the central delegation. Jaitley had said that the Center had “primary powers” in the transfer of IPS agents. The decision was made at a Union Cabinet meeting, and Attorney General Soli Sorabjee was asked to interrupt a trip to London to attend.
Jayalalithaa then, like Mamata Banerjee now, refused to pardon those officers. He wrote to other top ministers asking for their support in protecting the rights of states. He wrote about the “disturbing trend” in the management of All India Services state cadres and Center-State relations. While the Center’s demand declined, he said, as Mamata said on Saturday, that there was already a shortage of good officers in the state, that it needed those officers. 📣 Follow Express explained on Telegram
What the rules say
For the main civil services (IAS, IPS and the Indian Forest Service), the Center assigns state cadre officials from a pool of officials. From time to time, a certain number of officers are sent to the central delegation. The Ministry of the Interior is the authority that controls the IPS panel, the Personnel and Training Department for the IAS panel and the Ministry of the Environment, Forests and Climate Change for the IFS panel.
Muthukaruppan told The Indian Express on Sunday: “I cannot comment on what the central government can do against West Bengal officials, but we approached the CAT (Central Administrative Court) which suspended the order from the Interior Ministry. None of us have tried to be a central deputy since 2001. The central government did not take any further action against us. “
The Center cannot take any action against civil service officials attached to the state government. Rule 7 of the All India Services Rules (Discipline and Appeal), 1969, states that the “Authority to initiate proceedings and impose sanctions” shall be the state government if the official is “serving in connection with the affairs of a State, or is delegated for service under any company, association or body of individuals, whether incorporated or not, wholly or substantially owned or controlled by the Government of a State, or in a local authority established by an Act of the Legislature of that State. “For an official of the Indian Services (IAS, IPS, IFS) to take action against an official, the state and the Center must agree.
Rule 6 (1) of the Indian Police Service (Cadre) Rules, 1954 says about delegation: “In case of disagreement, the matter will be decided by the central government and the state government or state governments involved. will give effect to the decision of the Central Government ”.
According to the delegation policy of the Ministry of the Interior for IPS officers, “if an official on offer is selected for a central position and does not report either on his own or before the state government, he would be excluded from being considered for a placed under the Government of India for a period of five years. Officers who have already been disbarred should not be offered before the end of the disqualification period. ”However, being excluded from central delegation hardly bothers an official if he prefers to work in his state.
Another episode, which occurred in February last year, was an indication of the Center’s limitations in acting against officials of the All India Service. The Interior Ministry had written to the then Chief Secretary, Malay Kumar De, requesting that action be taken against five officers, including DGP Virendra, for allegedly participating in a dharna organized by the Trinamool Congress. The state government, however, said that no official had participated in the dharna.
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