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Friday, November 01, 2013

SC ruling on fixed tenure, oral instructions will strengthen bureaucracy; Full List of 83 bureaucrat petitioners

IN A landmark intervention, India’s Apex Court is ensuring that civil servants are not forced to act upon oral instructions of their political bosses, except in certain exceptional circumstances. Also, the Supreme Court bench comprising Justices KS Radhakrishnan and Pinaki Chandra Ghose on Thursday directed the Centre and state governments to pass order in three months on giving fixed tenure to civil servants. But who are those 83 former bureaucrats, on whose…
public interest writ petition, the apex court gave its ruling? Petitioners included former cabinet secretary TSR Subramanian, former India’s ambassador to US Abid Hussain, former chief election commissioner TS Krishna Murthy, former Delhi Police chief and ex-Governor, Ved Prakash Marwah and former Maruti boss and ex-bureaucrat Jagdish Khattar etc. (Full List of 83 petitioners below).
The Court in its ruling said that fixed tenure of bureaucrats will “promote professionalism, efficiency and good governance.” In the petition filed in February, 2011, the former government officials said that the need of giving fixed tenure to civil servants was reiterated by every commission or committee in the last 50 years. “The Government of India will have to ensure minimum tenure, not just in the Centre but also more importantly, in the States. This is a key necessity, to loosen the day to day control exercised by the politicians on the implementation of decision making process of the field officials, without which governance will not improve. Unless the Centre finds a viable solution in this regard, much of the exercise will be superficial, and lacking in substance,” the petition said.
On the need of recording instructions from political bosses, the petitioners asked: “Every civil servant formally records all such instructions/directions/orders/suggestions which he/she receives, not only from his/her administrative superiors but also from political authorities, legislators, commercial and business interests and other persons/quarters having interest, wielding influence…”.
The Apex Court has agreed to such a system. The SC Bench said: “Where in exceptional circumstances, action has to be taken on the basis of oral directions, it is mandatory for the officer superior to confirm the same in writing. The civil servant, who has received such information, in turn, is required to seek confirmation of the directions in writing as early as possible and it is the duty of the officer superior to confirm the direction in writing.”
The Court said that there must be “some records to demonstrate how the civil servant has acted, if the decision is not his, but if he is acting on oral directions, instructions, he should record such directions in the file.” After all, if the civil servant is acting on oral directions or dictation of anybody, he will be taking a risk, because he cannot later take the stand the decision was in fact not his own, the Bench added. “Recording of instructions, directions is, therefore, necessary for fixing responsibility and ensuring accountability in the functioning of civil servants and to uphold institutional integrity,” the ruling said.

List of 83 former bureaucrat petitioners
1.       TSR Subramanian
Former Cabinet Secretary, GoI
2.       Abid Hussain
Former Ambassador of India to US
3.   TS Krishna Murthy
Former Chief Election Commissioner
4.  N Gopalaswami
Former Chief Election  Commissioner of India
5.  Ved Prakash Marwah,
Former Delhi Police Commissioner,
Former Governor of Manipur, Mizoram and Jharkhand.
6. Bhure Lal
Former Secretary to Government of India,
Former Chairman of the
Environment Pollution (Prevention)
Control Authority (EPCA)
7. NC Saxena
Former Secretary, Planning Commission of India
8.  Jagdish Chandra Pant
Former Secretary to Government of India
9. Surendra Narain Mathur
Former MD, Indian Railway Finance Corporation
10. Arvind Varma
Former Secretary, Ministry of Chemicals and Petroleum, GoI
11. Prem Narain Mittal
Former Member (Investigation) CBDT
12. Keki Daruwalla
Former Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on International Affairs
13. RL Narayan,
Former High Commissioner to Canada
14. Ajay Prasad
Former Secretary, Civil Aviation, GoI
15. Sharad Chandra Behar
Former Chief Secretary, Madhya Pradesh
16. Nirmala Buch
Former Secretary to GoI, Ministry of Rural Development
17. Arundhati Ghose
Former Ambassador to United Nations Offices in Geneva
18. Amitabh Chandra
Former Principal Secretary, Medical Education and Drugs Department,
Government of Maharashtra
19. Nripendra Misra
Former Chairperson, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
20.  Sivaramakrishnan S Natarajan
Former Chairman, Ordinance Factory Board
and Director General, Ordinance Factories, Ministry of Defence
21. Joginder Singh
Former Director, CBI
22. Bahukutumbi Raman
Former Additional Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat,
Government of India
23. BK Ratnakar Rao
Former Secretary (Security),
Cabinet Secretariat,
Government of India
24. Arun Bhagat
Former Director, IB, Government of India
25. Sushil Tripathi
Former Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, GoI
26. Rajinder Jit Khurana
Former Chairman, Joint Intelligence Committee,
Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India
Former Secretary to the Government of India
27. Krishna V Rajan
Former Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs,
Government of India
28. Rakesh K Mittal
Former Social Welfare Commissioner, Uttar Pradesh
29. Amar Nath Ram
Former Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs, GoI
30     Raj K Bhargava
Former Home Secretary, Government of India
31. Kewal Ram Bhati
Former Vice Chairman,
Uttarakhand Public Services Tribunal, Dehradun
32. S Chakravarthy
Former Member, Monopolies and Restrictive Trade
Practice Commission, GoI
33. Shailaja Chandra
Former Chairperson, Public Grievances Commission and
Appellate Authority under Delhi Right to Information Act, 2001,
Government of NCT of Delhi
34. Francis Thomas Raphael Colaso
Former Director General of Police, Karnataka
35. Ravindra Gupta
Former Secretary Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises
36. Siddharth Kak
Former Member
Customs Central Board of Excise and Customs (Spl. Secretary)
37.  Ajit Kumar
Former Finance Secretary, Government of India
38. Jagdish Khattar
Former Joint Secretary, Ministry of Steel, GoI
Former Maruti Chief
39. Mano Ranjan
Former Secretary, Ministry of Steel,
Government of India
40.  Pravin Chandra Sharma
Former Member, Board of Revenue Uttar Pradesh
Former Chairman, Uttar Pradesh State Roads Corporation
41. HH Vishwanathan
Former High Commissioner of India to Nigeria
42. Sarita Prasad, Former Secretary,
Ministry of  Social Justice and Empowerment, GoI
43. NK Sabharwal
Former Director, Cooperation for Development
Bureau for Asia and the Pacific at the
World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO)
44. Varghese Alexander Valiaparampil
Former Adviser Transport, Planning Commission of India
45. P Venkatarama Venkatakrishnan
Former Chairman, Pollution Control Board, Chennai
Former Member, Central Administrative Tribunal
46. K  Aggarwal, Former Principal Advisor, Planning
Commission, Government of India
47. Kamal Nain Bakshi
Former Ambassador of India to Italy
48. Bhagirath Lal Das
Former Secretary, Department of Steel,  Government of India
49. Jai Paul Gupta
Former Financial Commissioner, Punjab
50. Swatantra VS Juneja
Former Special Secretary, Ministry of Finance
Former Director General, Asian Development Bank, Manila
51. DV Kapur
Former Secretary to Ministries of Power, Heavy Industry
and Chemicals and Petrochemicals, GoI
52. Bishambar Makhija
Former Principal Advisor, Planning Commission, GoI
53. Ravindra Mathur
Former Secretary to the Government of India
Former Chief Secretary, Uttar Pradesh
54. Mahesh Prasad
Former Chairman Indian Trade Promotion Organisation
55. LV Saptharishi
Former Secretary to the Government of India
56. Ram Updesh Singh
Former Chairman, Bureau of Public Enterprises,
Former Vigilance Commissioner
57. Ishwar C Srivastava
Former CMD, Rajasthan Minerals Development Corporation, Jaipur
58. Dr Gopalan Sundaram
Former Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India
59. RP Agrawal
Former Secretary, Higher Education, Government of India
60. Anil Baijal
Former Secretary, Ministry of Urban Development, GoI
61. Kulbir Singh
Former Chief Administrative Officer,
Northern Railway (Ministry of Railways)
62. Dipak Chatterjee
Former Secretary, Ministry of Commerce, GoI
Former Ambassador of India to European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg
63. Arun Bongirwar
Former Chief Secretary, Maharashtra
Former Chairman, Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust
64. Deepak Dasgupta
Former Chairman, National Highways Authority of India
65. DS Bagga
Former Chief Secretary, Government of Uttar Pradesh
66. Harsh Gupta
Former Chief Secretary, Himachal Pradesh
67. SK Arora
Former Ambassador of India to Iran
68.  DR Kaarthikeyan
Former Director, CBI
69. Kura Ram Lakhanpal
Former Chief Secretary, Punjab
70. Jagmohan L Bajaj
Former Chairman UP Electricity Regulatory Commission
71. BS Sial
Former Director General of Police, NSG
72. Raghubar Dayal
Former Managing Director, Container Corporation of India
73. Manohar Subrahmanyam
Former Joint Secretary, Department of Food,
Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, GoI
 74. PP Khanna
Former Development Commissioner,
Small Scale Industries, Government of India
75. NN Vasudev
Former Vice-Chairman Railway Claims Tribunal
76. Proloy Bagchi
Former Additional Secretary, Department of Posts and Telegraphs,
Government of India
77.  Vijay Kumar
Former Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs
78. S. Narayan
Former Secretary to the Prime Minister,
Former Chief Economic Adviser to the Prime Minister
79.  S Regunathan
Former Chief Secretary, Government of Delhi
80. Surendra Singh Pangtey
Former Administrative Member, Board of Revenue, Lucknow
81. Anand Sarup
Former Chairman, National Book Trust of India
Former Education Secretary, Government of India
82. Surjit Kishore Das
Former Chief Secretary, Uttarakhand
83. Bhalachandra N Bhagwat
Secretary, Ministry Human Resource Development, GoI

5 comments:

  1. Good to have the complete list of bureaucrats. Excellent info. Three cheers for those 83 officials

    ReplyDelete
  2. Landmark decision by SC.Hope for the best & thanks to all officials.

    ReplyDelete
  3. A Sound Move at a Needy Hour. Cheers UP

    ReplyDelete
  4. What these retired bureaucrats were doing when in service? have they risen their voice when in service?

    ReplyDelete