Unsteady at the top

Round and round like the diurnal revolutions of the earth went the file, stately, solemn, sure and slow.” That was Lord Curzon on the Indian bureaucracy when he was the Viceroy. Has anything changed?

Things have reached the stage where the Establishment drags its feet even where the issues concern itself alone. I have written often on the Government of India’s flawed — some say non-existent — policies on tenure and succession. Today, I invite you to take a look at the very apex of the bureaucratic pyramid — the Cabinet Secretary.

The story begins in the 1960s. An Administrative Reforms Commission was set up under the chairmanship of Morarji Desai. (After he became Mrs Gandhi’s Deputy Prime Minister, the chair was taken by Hanumanthayya.)
As is customary, the actual work of the commission was done by a study team working under C.D. Deshmukh. The group’s conclusion was that the Cabinet Secretary should be given a term of four years. It also recommended that the job should be given to the most qualified candidate, no questions asked. If he or she reached the statutory age of retirement, then the term would be automatically extended.

For some reason best known only to themselves, the Administrative Reforms Commission changed the recommendation of a four year term to “three or four years”. This, in my opinion, added a needless element of doubt but let that pass.

Hit the fast-forward button, and turn now to 1978. Indira Gandhi was out of power, and Morarji Desai was in the saddle. The Union Cabinet decided to clothe the recommendations made a decade earlier in legal sanctity. And so the ministers decided the Cabinet Secretary would enjoy a tenure of three years in office. Having whittled away at the study group’s recommendation this once, they went on to accept that superannuation need not be a problem. (The age of retirement in those days was 58, but the Cabinet Secretary was to be permitted to continue for a couple of years if necessary.)

For the record, the ministers who took that decision included some familiar names. The External Affairs Minister was Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Information and Broadcasting Minister L.K. Advani, and the Industry Minister was George Fernandes.

Switch to today. So help me Lord, 23 years after the Morarji Desai Cabinet took a firm decision, 33 years after the Administrative Reforms Commission made its findings public, we are still debating the same old issues.

Truth be told, nobody is silly enough to argue with the basic proposition that tenure is a good thing in itself. Prime Minister Vajpayee has insisted on the application of the principle in the financial institutions, giving various chief executives a term of two years.

This is just as well. Do you know what would have happened had the rules of seniority and statutory retirement been applied mindlessly? We would have seen the spectacle of the State Bank of India going through eight chairmen in just five years. And the Life Insurance Corporation, not to be left behind, would have had three in a single year.

It is also a rule that the chiefs of staff of the three armed services should enjoy a three year term in office. The importance of continuity in office is self-evident, and here too nobody wants to tinker with it.

So why on earth is there one set of rules for the financial institutions and the armed forces, and another altogether for the civil services? Some time ago, the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet approved the name of O. P. Srivastava for the post of chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes. He will take over the post on August 1, 2001, and shall remit office on December 31, 2001.

May I pose a simple question to those who appointed him? What exactly do you hope to have him achieve in five months? He was not there as the chairman when the last Union Budget was being prepared. He will probably not be there when the next Budget is being presented. Or is he to be given an extension? Does that mean he is being asked to retire on March 31, 2002?

I mentioned the two-year directive applied to financial institutions after the Prime Minister’s decision. I am sorry to note that the civil service has found a way to subvert the spirit of the decision. The original idea was that a good man should be allowed to continue for a decent period of time. The civil service is trying to interpret this as that only candidates with two years left in service shall be considered for the top jobs.

This is a crucial difference. The idea was to reward merit. What is now happening is that talent is being given the go-by altogether, with the calendar reigning supreme.

The age of retirement is decided by the date of birth. And promotion shall be given, presumably automatically, by using seniority — meaning the date one entered service. Basically, if you have enough time left in harness you hit the jackpot!

Let us assume that this applies to the Cabinet Secretary’s post. The incumbent, T.R. Prasad, is scheduled to retire on 31 July, 2001. So who should succeed him?

The next man in line who will still have two years to go before retiring is N.K. Sinha, a Bihar cadre officer of the 1966 batch. But in terms of seniority he is only 29th on the current civil service list.

I put it squarely to all those Indian Administrative Service officers, both past and present, trying to circumvent the prime minister: are you prepared to let Mr Sinha ride above you?

It will, of course, add a certain financial burden. The current rules state that if a relatively junior officer is selected as Cabinet Secretary, all those above him on the ladder should also receive a Cabinet Secretary’s salary. (This rule, by the way, is not there in the financial institutions.) Paying 28 men at one go seems a bit over the top to put it mildly!

The current Union Cabinet does not need reminders on the benefits of tenure. It knows what it could do in 13 days, what it achieved in 13 months, and what it can hope to do today.

It took Morarji Desai a decade to settle the matter of a Cabinet Secretary’s term. After 23 years, let us hope that Prime Minister Vajpayee will insist on the guidelines laid down by the Desai Cabinet: give the job to the best man and give him tenure.

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