This instant matter was listed for an urgent hearing before the bench comprising Justice Indira Banerjee and Sanjiv Khanna, for dealt with the Centre’s plea in quashing of the judgment of the Delhi High Court in the matter of the cadre allocation of IAS, IPS officers. It was said that the High Court had asked the Centre to redo the entire process again.
The chosen 2018 batch was supposed to join their cadres from May 10th, however, the Delhi High Court gave an order quashing cadre allocation. It was said to be unfair and illegal and fresh allocations were ordered. The allocation of the cadres should be according to merit and on the basis their preferences to be kept in mind.
This surprising decision of the Court comes in furtherance of four different petitions, which challenged the unfair allocation to the IPS on basis of the Civil Service Exams. The Petitioners stated that the interpretation of the Cadre Allocation Policy-2017 by the respondents is arbitrary and unreasonable as more meritorious candidates have not been selected.
The Court accepted the contention of the Petitioners because they approached the Court at an earlier stage before the commencement of the training of the cadres and thus fresh allocations have been ordered on the basis of their merit. The same allocation process will be followed.The impugned Office Memorandum introduced a new cadre allocation policy which divided all states/ joint cadres into five zones. Candidates will indicate two preferences, for every preferred zone. It was contended that the respondents did not allocate the cadres on their merit and preference basis and despite having merit and vacancies in the preferred cadre, they were not allotted that. On the other hand, cadres with less merit were given the cadre of their choice.
One instance which was seen is that, a petitioner gave his preferences for the states of Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and others. He did not get into his preferred cadre. However, people with lower merit have got in the said cadres.
The Court agreed that, interpretation and implementation of the Cadre Allocation Policy – 2017 resorted to by the respondents is unreasonable and arbitrary. The principle of merit and preference was breached by the respondents due to the manner in which they have interpreted and implemented the OM dated 05.09.2017. Additionally it was noted that, object and purpose of the new Cadre Allocation Policy – 2017 was never made public by the respondents.
This step by the High Court is a step to bring a transparency into the system which involves the future of the youth, the future of India.
