Gurugram: With the Haryana chief secretary’s position likely to fall vacant after October, three officers of the 1990 IAS batch are seeking a revision in the cadre’s seniority list, ThePrint has learnt. Such a revision would put them ahead of officers who they say were transferred from other states to the Haryana cadre.
According to official sources, the three officers — Ankur Gupta, Raja Sekhar Vundru, and Anurag Rastogi — have written to the state government saying that they originally belonged to the Haryana cadre of the IAS while the two officers ahead of them, Sudhir Rajpal and Sumita Misra, had been transferred to the state.
The position will be vacant in October after two of the cadre’s most senior officers — incumbent Chief Secretary Sanjeev Kaushal and Additional Chief Secretary for Revenue and Home T.V.S.N. Prasad — retire.
The officers are learnt to have added that according to All India Services rules, officers who originally belong to a state cadre are placed ahead of those from the same batch who were transferred from other states.
This is the case according to the Indian Administrative Service (Regulation of Seniority) Rules, 1987, if the officers were transferred on their own request.
According to Haryana’s IAS list on the official website of the chief secretary, Rajpal is currently in the top position among the state’s 1990 batch officers. The list shows that he was transferred from Himachal Pradesh in 1994.
While the website doesn’t specifically indicate any change of cadre for Misra — the next in line after Rajpal — the three officers say she originally belonged to the Jammu and Kashmir cadre.
A senior official from the chief secretary’s office confirmed that the representation had been received but also said that the government had yet to examine it. This official also didn’t confirm if the claim that Misra was transferred from the J&K cadre was true.
“The seniority of the IAS officers is not fixed at the level of the Haryana government but by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) at the Centre. The government is likely to forward the representation to the Centre after examining it,” said the source.
Chief Secretary Kaushal is due to retire on 31 July this year, while T.V.S.N Prasad, a 1988-batch officer who’s next in line, will retire two months later on 31 October.
Official sources said that in case Kaushal gets a three-month extension for the assembly elections due in October, he and Prasad will retire together.
If he doesn’t, the post will be vacant after Prasad retires.
The next officer in line is Vivek Joshi, who’s currently on central deputation as secretary of the Union Ministry of Finance. If he chooses not to return to the state, the officer next in line will be appointed as Haryana’s CS, official sources said.
In case he does come back, however, he will hold the position until 31 May, 2026.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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