New Delhi: The Centre on Friday told the Supreme Court that it would be creating 20 supernumerary posts to accommodate 20 IAS and the IPS probationers in the states that would be allocated to them based on their preferences.
Taking on record the Centre’s offer to accommodate the 20 IAS and the IPS probationers against the supernumerary posts, the vacation bench of Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Sanjiv Khanna said that this would not be treated as a precedent and it would not be extended to any other similarly placed officer of their batch.
Making it clear that it is being done as an exceptional case and will not be treated as a precedent, the vacation bench, while modifying the Delhi high court order, said it is needless to say that while accommodating 20 probationary officers, the original allocation of state cadre to other more than 300 IAS and IPS officers will not be disturbed. Modifying the HC order, the SC kept the question of law open.
The top court order came on the Centre’s plea against the Delhi high court order quashing the cadre allocation made by the DoPT of the “IAS officers vide communication dated December 3, 2018, and the IPS officers vide OM dated December 19, 2018”.
Having quashed the cadre allocation policy, the Delhi high court had in its May 3 judgment directed the Centre to “undertake fresh cadre allocation of the successful candidates allocated to the IAS and IPS, according to their merit and by taking into consideration the preferences given by the candidates”.
Describing the matter as “very serious”, Justice Khanna at the outset of the hearing told solicitor general Tushar Mehta to talk to the aggrieved officers to find a way out of the imbroglio.
“They are all youngsters. Is it not possible to resolve the issue by taking to them?” Justice Khanna questioned the solicitor general.
However, the solicitor general appeared unbending and said, “It is not possible.”
