Babus under siege

It’s not often that IAS officers come together to take on their political masters over an issue. But the H.C. Gupta episode and now the suspension of G.K. Dwivedi, senior IAS officer in the home ministry, has united the “heaven-born” into an unusual move. As many as 15 joint secretaries working in the ministry met home minister Rajnath Singh to plead for revoking of Mr Dwivedi’s suspension for renewing the licence to controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik’s Islamic Research Foundation.

Babus argued that Mr Dwivedi, a 1993-batch Andhra Pradesh cadre officer, was known to be honest and that his suspension has demoralised other officials in the ministry. They believe that Mr Dwivedi was being “wrongly punished”. Another set of officers also met home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi on Saturday to plead for Mr Dwivedi’s case, even as IAS officer Sanjay Bhoosreddy led a delegation of Central IAS Officers Association to meet minister of state Jitendra Singh in the PMO. It’s a different matter that the government has tactically leaked that the Dwivedi suspension actually bears the PM’s seal, an indication that any reversal is “complicated”. The group urged the government to go further and review some of the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 and the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 to ensure that “honest and sincere officers” are not made scapegoats for “bona fide” decisions taken in public interest.

Clearly, IAS officers are rattled by these developments.

A ‘turf’ problem The green signal to the Goods and Service Tax may have gladdened many hearts but the Indian Revenue Service babus are unhappy. They have strongly opposed the Goods and Services Tax Network, a private company set up to create the necessary IT infrastructure for the GST. Recently the association of IRS officers met finance minister Arun Jaitley and sought his intervention in the matter. Tax babus are insistent that since management of the company should be entrusted to the Directorate General of Systems of Central Board of Excise and Customs since only they have the domain knowledge in indirect tax laws. Sources say that the revenue officials are also opposed to the composition of the GST Council secretariat, which is headed by revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia, an IAS officer. They fear that this is another attempt by the IAS to intrude into their turf. But will the revenue officials continue their resistance or fall in line with the government view remains to be seen. Mr Jaitley has promised to implement GST by April next year, and probably will not brook any delay due to a “turf” problem.

Bitter contest As if the Karnataka government doesn’t have enough problems on its hands, with the flaring up of the Cauvery water-sharing dispute with neighbouring Tamil Nadu, the administration is roiled by the open tussle between rival lobbies to fill the upcoming vacancy in the chief secretary’s post. Arvind Jadhav, who recently got a clean chit in a land grab case and a three-month extension, is retiring at the end of the month after a controversy-ridden tenure.

According to sources, the race to succeed Mr Jadhav has split the IAS officers of Karnataka right down the middle with rival camps openly trying to run down each other. In this politicised atmosphere, there is a growing view that the next chief secretary should be a dalit. By this criterion, the contender who sees to enjoy the necessary political clout is Rathna Prabha, additional chief secretary. Senior officer V. Umesh, a Kannadiga, is believed to be another strong contender. Apparently, chief minister Siddaramaiah has “assured” Ms Prabha’s supporters that she will be considered after Mr Jadhav’s tenure. However, given the very public nature of the wrangling over the post, insiders say that the CM is trying to scout for a non-controversial senior IAS officer to replace Mr Jadhav. Watch this space for updates.