Dissension continues to dog the bureaucracy in Kerala as it gets embroiled in yet another controversy. The transfer of senior IAS officer B Ashok (IAS:1998:KL) has further deepened the factional feud among IAS officers in the state. There is almost a vertical split among the bureaucrats in the state on this issue.
B Ashok, who holds the rank of Principal Secretary, has been transferred from the Agriculture Department to the Local Self-Government Reforms Commission.
The legality of the government action has come to be seriously questioned as a large number of bureaucrats are siding with Ashok in openly criticizing the government’s decision.
A section of bureaucracy believes that Ashok’s transfer was partly triggered by his objections to government decisions during the meetings of departmental secretaries.
Others feel Ashok faced the music for raising objections to several contentious government decisions, including the rehabilitation of landslide
victims in Wayanad.
There is another aspect of discontent. The government action is said to have entailed procedural lapses as it allegedly bypassed the standard protocol of seeking the official’s consent and obtaining departmental sanction. If this is true, it could provide strong legal grounds for Ashok to challenge the decision of his transfer.
According to the Civil Service Amendment Act, the prior approval of the Union Ministry of Personnel is required for the appointment of civil servants at commissions and tribunals.
With these technicalities in mind, Ashok is reported to be contemplating legal action against his transfer to the Administrative Reforms Commission. Interestingly, the Commission itself is in a nebulous state. Neither its constitution nor its terms of reference has been finalized yet.
