Dr. Pingale Vijay Maruti (IAS:2004:TN) currently working as Private Secretary to Suresh Prabhu, Minister for Commerce and Industry, has reportedly resigned from the Indian Administrative Service.

It is important to mention that Pingale was Prabhu’s first choice for PS job when he became Railway Minister in 2014 but then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu had refused to relieve Maruti for central posting.

In January 2017 Pingale was appointed PS to Railway Minister Prabhu and later on 27 september he was laterally shifted to Ministry of Commerce as PS to Prabhu.

With lots of brow ha-ha and debate on the centre’s move on inviting lateral entries at the level of joint secretary, the Prime Minister’s Office has stated that the move had “no adverse effect on the morale of civil servants.

Citing the names of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was also a bureaucrat, and the then Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia as being appointed through the lateral recruitment route, the government said there has been no adverse effect on the morale of the civil servants due to such appointments. Jitendra Singh, Minister of State (MoS), Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) was replying to questions by Sajda Ahmed and Prasun Banerjee on reforms in bureaucracy. Jitendra Singh said the government has decided to undertake lateral recruitment of 10 Joint Secretaries on contract basis in order to achieve the twin objectives of bringing in fresh talent as well as augmenting the availability of manpower.

The others in the past who have been named by PMO are deputy chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia, former adviser to the Ministry of Finance and erstwhile finance secretary Vijay Kelkar, former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Bimal Jalan, chief economic adviser Shankar Acharya, deputy governor of RBI Rakesh Mohan, former economic adviser Arvind Virmani.

During the current Narendra Modi regime, those who were inducted through lateral entry include Arvind Panagariya who recently stepped down as vice-chairman of Niti Aayog, chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian, special secretary in the Ministry of AYUSH Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha, Parameswaran Iyer, a retired IAS officer who returned from the United States to head India’s cleanliness drive Swachch Bharat Mission, and Ram Vinay Shahi, served as the secretary to the Government of India in the power ministry.

Defending its move of lateral entry, the ministry stated NITI Aayog in its three year Action Agenda 2017-18 to 2019-20 has also highlighted that it is essential that specialists be inducted in to the system through lateral entry on fixed-term contract. It mentions Sectoral Group of Secretaries (SGoS) report of February, 2017 in which it was observed that there is a shortage of officers at the joint secretary/ director/ deputy secretary level, in 1995-2002.

In keeping with the principle of “reform, perform and transform”, the government has taken several measures to reform bureaucracy including issue of provisional appointment orders (to those selected) on receipt of duly filled attestation form and self declaration by candidates pending police verification of character and antecedents, among others, Ministry said.

As the power tussle between the CBI director and the second senior-most officer was in full swing, the Central Vigilance Commission gave the go-ahead for the extention of the tenure of some key officers in the investigating agency, including those who have worked closely in some high-profile cases, as part of special director Rakesh Asthana’s team.

Panel headed by Central Vigilance Commissioner KV Chowdhary extends the tenure of the officers that include a Deputy Inspector General (DIG) rank officer, who was recently repatriated to his cadre state Tripura. However, the officer was called back to the agency soon after.

Few days earlier, CBI wrote to the CVC saying that Asthana, a Gujarat cadre IPS officer, (and second senior-most officer) is not allowed to attend the panel’s meeting in absence of the agency’s director Alok Verma. The CBI director is an invitee to the panel headed by the CVC.

The panel also cleared extension in deputation tenure of two other senior IPS officers, Joint Directors AYV Krishna and Sai Manohar Aramane, who worked closely with Mr Asthana in probing important cases, including the one involving businessman Vijay Mallya.
A recent order issued by the Personnel Ministry approved extension in tenure of Mr Aramane, a 1995 batch IPS officer of Madhya Pradesh cadre, from July 17, 2018 till April 2019. Mr Krishna has also been given extension from July 18, 2018 till January 17, 2020, it said.

The competent authority has approved extension in tenure of Manish Kishore Sinha from April 3, 2018 to November 30, 2018. Sinha, a 1996 batch IPS officer of Jammu and Kashmir cadre, is undergoing training at National Defence College. He is Joint Director in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The tenure of another senior IPS officer Anish Prasad, who was in May repatriated to his cadre state Tripura and called back soon after, has also been extended from June 3, 2018 to May 5, 2020. According to another order by the Personnel Ministry. He is posted as Deputy Director (Administration) in the CBI headquarters.

The tenure of IPS officer Prem Kumar Gautam, associated with coal blocks scam probe, has also been extended. The approval of competent authority is conveyed for extension in the central deputation tenure of Gautam for a period from January 27, 2018 till the date CBI gets permission/further direction from the Supreme Court which is monitoring probe in the multi-crore coal block scam.