Issuing notices to the Cabinet Secretariat and ministry of personnel, a division bench of Chief Justice S N Variava and Justice S K Mahajan asked the respondents to file replies by November 30, the next date of hearing.

The notices were issued following a public interest writ by a registered society -- Kabir -- which said that the staffing pattern at present had been `distorted' in a manner to provide leverage to the officers from the Indian Adminstrative Service (IAS) at the cost of officers from other cadre.