IAS officers have no right to claim cadre of choice: SC

IAS officers have no right to claim cadre of choice: SC

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi:23.10.2021

The Supreme Court has said a candidate cannot claim allocation of cadre of his/her choice as a matter of right after qualifying civil services examination as he/she opts for serving anywhere in the country with “eyes wide open”.

A bench of justices Hemant Gupta and V Ramasubramanian passed the order while adjudicating a 14-year legal battle of a IAS officer to get Kerala cadre as it was her home state. Kerala High Court had passed the order in favour of A Shainamol and directed the Centre in 2017 to change her cadre from Himachal Pradesh to Kerala.

The apex court, however, quashed the HC order and said that issue of allocation of cadres was well settled by the apex court in various judgments and the consistent view of the Court has been that even if the name of the candidate appears in the merit list, such candidate has no right to claim appointment.

“In the light of Rajiv Yadav (case), the allocation of cadre is not a matter of right. It was held that a selected candidate has a right to be considered for appointment to the IAS, but he has no such right to be allocated to a cadre of his choice or to his home state... Allotment of cadre is an incidence of service. The applicant as a candidate for the All-India Service with eyes wide open has opted to serve anywhere in the country. The State has no discretion of allocation of a cadre at its whims and fancies,” it said.