Toying with the rules?

The cardinal principle of good governance is 'rule of law' which is exemplified by equality of all citizens before the law and total avoidance of arbitrariness in use of power. It implies that laws and their enforcement are legally and explicitly regulated so that no one — including the most highly placed officials — is above the law. The legal constraint on rulers means that the government is as much subjected to existing laws as the citizens are. Totalitarian regimes have been freely using power and, for them, rule of law holds no significance but for a vibrant democracy like India, we have fundamental laws which provide citizen rights. Article 14 of the Indian Constitution guarantees equality before law as well as equal protection under law to all people within the territory of India. This includes equal subjection of all persons to the authority of law, as well as equal treatment of persons in similar circumstances.

The trigger to write this article has been the news about some civil servants resigning, fighting elections and, after losing or getting frustrated, clawing back the service they left after pulling wires. The latest news relates to Shah Faesal, a 2010 batch Kashmiri Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, who resigned on January 9, 2019 and formed a political party named Jammu and Kashmir People's Movement (JKPM) in February 2019. He criticised the Central Government's policies on Kashmir and promised a new brand of politics by incorporating many separatist leaders and started with much fanfare with the slogan, 'Hawa Badlegi' (change will come). However, barring former PDP leader Javid Mustafa Mir, the party did not attract any other established politician. Among those who joined JKPM was JNU student leader Shehla Rashid Shora, who had shot to prominence for anti-national sloganeering at the university. Faesal was arrested on August 14, 2019 after the abrogation of Article 370 while he was escaping from the country. One of the most damning statements he gave in a BBC interview was that in Kashmir, either there are 'stooges' or the 'separatists', and he would not like to be a stooge. So, clearly, he was donning a separatist hat. In fact, since 2014, he had been tweeting against the government but no action was taken against him. He, however, had a change of heart after he was released from ten month's detention and quit the party he founded, and also politics, in August 2020. Now, in 2022, he has been readmitted into the IAS. One of the reasons, apart from the political ones, may have been the fact that his resignation was not accepted. Secondly, as there were few cases in the IAS and IPS in Uttar Pradesh where some officers went abroad in the United States, employed themselves and, after earning a lot for more than ten to 15 years, came back and happily joined back the services and retired with a full pension. In another bizarre case, an IPS officer fought election, lost and came back to service. These instances must have been cited as precedent for taking the delinquent or political Romeos back.

Such actions of the Central and state governments have posed a serious question of transparency, accountability and propriety in governance matters as per rule of law, integrity of civil services conducts rules and maintenance of transparency and equality in dealing with similar cases under Article 14. While on one hand, some lesser mortals in the Central as well as state services are being charged, voluntarily retired and even dismissed for lapses, on the other hand, a few officers get a license to abuse the system and fight elections and get back with impunity. How can the government justify punishing HC Gupta — an honest IAS officer — who, as a Coal Secretary, was incarcerated and is languishing in jail for a minor debatable lapse of signing the file, whereas the overall responsibility was of the Minister (at that time the Prime Minister was the Minister of coal also). Can we assume that some All India Service officers can willfully violate the conduct rules? If this trend continues, it will lead to anarchy in administration. The government must not allow violation of conduct rules as it sends a very bad message to the public. The Department of Personnel Training (DoPT) had sent clear guidelines for treating an officer's long or unauthorised absence as deemed resignation. In the case of Shah Faesal and other such cases, the 'modus operandi' is to keep the issue of accepting resignation or deemed resignation pending indefinitely till the networking devises a new rule for the concerned officer. It is because of these reasons, there is a saying about DoPT's working style in the corridors of government that 'you show me the face I will show you the rule'. On the contrary, the Personnel Ministry and Central Vigilance Commission keeps harassing many officers who cannot pull wires.

The time has come to stem this rot. The PMO is a very busy office and in such cases, it is the selfish and biased advisors who are responsible for such blatantly unfair and ludicrous decisions which were a rarity a few decades ago under the Central Government. In the case of Shah Faesal, the government could have rehabilitated him politically after exonerating him from sedition charges in any other post under the Kashmir government rather than setting a bad precedent which violates rule of law. There are ways to rehabilitate people like Faesal but, for God's sake, please do not make a mockery of All India Services rules. It is for this reason that the judiciary is intervening in the domain of the executive. The government must take corrective steps so that such cases of long absence of officers for ulterior reasons are not repeated. It should fix up absolute accountability.

The writer is Chairman of the Centre for Resource Management and Environment. Views expressed are personal