Releasing the Civil Servants from the Stranglehold of the Politicians: A PIL in vain?

Worse than bad governance is the situation when the Government of the day refuses to let any action be usefully taken against it. Recently a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) appeal was filed by former Union cabinet secretary T S R Subramanian alongwith 82 distinguished public servants. They are seeking urgent reforms to save the administrative service from tottering for some semblance of governance.

Supreme Court bench comprising Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma found it to be unfortunate that neither Union Government nor the State Governments have found this an important issue and have given any response. The Governments were given 4 weeks to file their responses.

The UP Govt, in their response, found the PIL misconceived and legally not maintainable. Despite so many scams including the Taj Heritage Corridor scam, UP Government said that it has enough measures for “corruption free governance”. Really??

Who judges the response of the Government against corruption, one which itself is corrupt? Who will bell the cat?

It seems that the time has come to free to Administrative services personnel from the clutches of the politicians. The latter are no longer worthy of running the country. At the minimum, the instruments of “punishment” that the Politicians use against the Civil Servants should be taken away immediately! And, that is what the petitioners asked for:

“There is an urgent need to depoliticise management of transfers, postings, inquiries, promotions, reward, punishment and disciplinary matters relating to civil servants.”

How can we have a day when the politicians can no longer play game with power and stay focused on managing the things better?