by Dhananjay Mahapatra
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NEW DELHI: The concern among bureaucracy over the decline of administrative services spilled over to the Supreme Court on Friday when former Union cabinet secretary T S R Subramanian and 82 distinguished public servants sought urgent reforms to stem the decay.
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"This petition raises a very important question," a Bench comprising Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma said and issued notice to the Union and state governments without waiting for petitioners` counsel, senior advocate KK Venugopal, to start arguments.
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The petitioners said, "There is an urgent need to depoliticise management of transfers, postings, inquiries, promotions, reward, punishment and disciplinary matters relating to civil servants."
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They wanted creation of an independent Civil Services Board or Commission both at the Centre and state; fixed tenure for civil servants to ensure stability and insulation from political pressure; and, requirement that every civil servant formally records all instructions received from administrative and political bosses as well as other quarters.
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The measures listed in the petition feature among the recommendations that Administrative Reform Commissions have made from time to time. The fact that petitioners together have work experience of at least 2,500 man-years in civil services, lends weight to the petition.
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Earlier, Supreme Court had turned into the driver seat for implementation of police reforms.
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The list of petitioners was enviable and included ex-Union cabinet secretary, former ambassador to US Abid Hussain, ex-CECs TSK Murthy and N Gopalaswamy, former Manipur governor Ved Marwah, ex-secretary and environment panel chief Bhure Lal, National Advisory Commission member NC Saxena, former special assistant to PM on international affairs Keki Daruwalla, former ambassador to UN Arundhati Ghose, former Trai chairman Nripendra Misra, ex-IB director Arun Bhagat, ex-finance secretary Ajit Kumar, former Maruti chief Jagdish Khattar, ex-CBI director DR Karthikeyan and ex-NSG chief BS Sial.
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The petitioners said, "We are of the view that implementation of these clearly identified measures of administration and civil services reform would substantially remedy the shortcomings and dramatically improve the impact of economic and social development programmes."
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They said poor service delivery, excessive regulation, whimsical interference guided by personal benefit, uncoordinated and wasteful public expenditure, inadequate transparency and lack of accountability was resulting in weak governance, affecting quality of life.
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"The Union government is conscious of the shortcomings in governance, evidenced by the fact that since independence, it alone had set up 50 commissions and committees to study and make recommendations on administrative reforms," the petitioners said.
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The court's decision to entertain the petition is bad news for the UPA government, already reeling under scams and judicial indictments. The Supreme Court is already monitoring investigations into irregular allotment of licences in the 2G spectrum scam.
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Sent by: "gurcharan brar" colgsbrar9@yahoo.com
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