Answer:

Civil Servants do not have stability of tenure, particularly in the state governments, where transfer and postings are made frequently, at the whims and fancies of the executive head.

Following issues are associated with short tenure of civil servants:

♤ Short tenure and dependence on political class for postings leads to the partisanship in civil servants giving rise to other menace like corruption, conflict of interest, nepotism and erosion of neutrality.

♤ Lack of security of tenure for important posts in India had greatly hampered the morale and efficiency of civil service.

♤ Short tenure leads to less effective performance measurement and appraisal of the civil servants.

♤ Arbitrary transfer of civil servants holding important post sometime goes against the principles of public interest and good governance.

♤ Stable tenures are necessary for enabling the incumbent to learn on the job, develop his own capacity and then contribute in the best possible manner.

Thus, to safeguard the Civil service from politicization and patronization, the second ARC as well the Supreme Court in 2013 recommended the setting up of the Civil Service Board with objectives of:

♤ Shielding the bureaucracy from political interferences and put an end to frequent transfers of civil servants

♤ Looking into the managements of transfers, postings, and inquiries, process of promotion, rewards, punishment and disciplinary matters.

♤ Providing stability to the civil servants and will uphold the neutrality and objectiveness in the functioning of civil servants.

But there are some issues that might hamper the purpose of setting up of the Civil Service Boards:

♤ The competent authorities, i.e. Prime Minister in case of Centre and Chief Minister in case State may amend, modify or reject the recommendation of the civil services board for the reasons to be recorded in writing.

♤ The board is to be headed by the Chief Secretary of the State who might have conflict of interest in the process.

Thus, apart from setting up of Civil Service Board, the political seclusion of it is required. Also some watchdogs like clearance from Lokayukta in case of premature transfer could be introduced into the setup.