Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Mar 19: Making an important announcement in reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Development of Northeastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh informed that the Government has issued a notification dated March 17, 2015 raising the upper age limit of State Government officers for induction into IAS, IPS and IFS from 54 to 56 years.
Explaining the background and chronology of this decision, Dr Jitendra Singh said, in 1967 the upper age limit for induction of State Civil Services officers into IAS was fixed at 52 years. But, he said, in the year 1979 when the age of retirement for IAS and allied services officers was 58 years, the same age limit was raised to 54 years. However, he added, following the 5th Pay Commission report, in 1998 the retirement age was raised to 60 years for IAS and allied services but the upper age limit for induction of State Govt officers into IAS still continued to be 54 years.
Following this, Dr Jitendra Singh said, there were a number of representations from the employees’ organizations and groups. Narrating the sequence of events, he said, in 2007, the Karnataka State employees approached Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) with the same grievance and got a favourable judgment. But the CAT decision was turned down following an appeal by the Government in High Court. Thereafter, the employees approached the Supreme Court which on August 7, 2014 ruled that since it was a policy decision, Department of Personnel & Training (DOP&T) should take an appropriate final decision in the matter. In the meantime, Dr Jitendra Singh said, the Narendra Modi Government had taken over and it was considered in the fitness of things to seek opinion from various stakeholders, including the State Governments. While most of the States agreed with the proposal to raise the age limit, some of the States like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and Bihar rejected this, while Sikkim offered no comments. After taking cognisance of all the views and opinions, the age limit has now been increased to 56 years considering the fact that any officer who gets inducted into IAS,IPS,IFS at this age will have four years of service left before superannuation and thus reasonably sufficient amount of time at his disposal to undergo mandatory training after induction as well as to offer his services to the Government.
Dr Jitendra Singh also informed that another notification has been issued almost simultaneously wherein for induction into IAS, IPS or IFS, the uniform common cutoff date for age calculation for all the State government officers will be January 1, of any given year in which the induction is to be made depending upon the number of vacancies arising in the given year from January 1, to December 31, of the same year. He said, this notification was required because in case of non-civil service State Govt officers getting inducted into IAS through the stipulated 15% quota, the date for calculating age was earlier fixed as January 1, of the succeeding year , which was an anomaly because this put the State Civil Services officers at a disadvantage for whom the age was calculated as on January 1, one year earlier.
At the same time, however, Dr. Jitendra Singh was categorical in clarifying that these two notifications will take effect prospectively and not retrospectively as demanded in certain quarters because doing that will unsettle the entire process and create chaos beyond redemption.
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