New Delhi: Allocation of cadre for IAS
and IPS officers cannot be done by the Centre in an arbitrary
manner, the Supreme Court has said.
A bench of justices RV Raveendran and AK Patnaik
said in a judgement that though IAS/IPS officers have no
vested right or preference for choice of their postings,
allocation of cadre states should be done in a just and
equitable manner.
"While making allocations of different candidates
appointed to the service to different state cadres or joint
cadres, the central government has also to discharge its
constitutional obligations contained in the equality
principles in Articles 14 (equality) and 16(1)(equal
opportunity in terms of employment) of the Constitution.
"A member appointed to the All India Service has no
right to be allocated to a particular state cadre or joint
cadre but he has a right to a fair and equitable treatment in
the matter of allocation under Articles 14 and 16(1) of the
Constitution," Justice Patnaik, writing the judgement, said.
The apex court made the remarks while dismissing the
Centre`s appeal challenging an Andhra Pradesh High Court order
quashing allocation of home cadre to Vikrama Varma who secured
201st rank in the 2004 Civil Services Exam conducted by UPSC
overlooking the claim of Avinash Mohanty who had obtained the
45th rank.
PTI
