New Delhi: The Uttarakhand High Court, in a move that could put the Modi government in a spot, has directed the latter to provide all records related to the empanelment of one of its officers who had claimed that despite having the requisite qualifications, he was denied promotion to the post of joint secretary, after failing the contentious 360-degree appraisal process.
Last October, in the same case, which had come up before the Central Administrative Tribunal’s (CAT’s) Nainital circuit bench, the Centre had in an affidavit said there is no such system of appraisal in the Government of India.
This was a complete U-turn on the informal 360-degree evaluation process that the Centre started in 2016 for appraisal of officers from the All India Services and other central government Group A services for empanelling them to the post of joint secretary and above. Empanelment is the process of selecting officers for placement at the top management level of the Government of India. The appointment of an officer of the rank of joint secretary is a two-step process involving empanelment and selection by an experts’ panel.
The appraisal system, also called the ‘multi-source feedback’, evaluates officers by obtaining feedback from people around them — peers, subordinates, customers (both internal and external) — apart from a self-appraisal and one by a superior. The system has been contested in the past by serving civil servants, who have questioned the opaqueness of the process.
It is in the backdrop of the Centre’s flip-flop on the appraisal process that the HC order, directing the Centre to provide all records relating to the “process and decision-making” of the empanelment of Uttarakhand cadre Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer Sanjeev Chaturvedi, assumes significance.
The court’s order was in response to a petition filed by Chaturvedi, who was informed in November 2022 that he was not being empanelled as joint secretary in the Centre. Chaturvedi is presently the chief conservator of forests in Uttarakhand and is posted in the research wing of the forest department.
The next date of hearing has been fixed for 22 October 22.
A senior IAS officer, who did not want to be named, told ThePrint the HC order means that for the first time, the Centre will have to provide all documents that will specify the grounds on which Chaturvedi’s empanelment as joint secretary was rejected. “Though the court has said only documents related to Chaturvedi’s empanelment be provided to him, it will clear the cloud over the evaluation process that was followed,” the officer added.
Opaqueness around 360-degree evaluation process
Chaturvedi had in December 2022 moved the CAT’s Nainital circuit bench and sought its intervention to consider his case for empanelment.
He also sought the tribunal’s intervention to call for records from the Centre and issue an appropriate direction for quashing the present appraisal system, it “being arbitrary, unreasonable, in violation of principles of natural justice, being in suppression of statutory rules and findings of (the) Parliamentary Committee report”.
The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) under the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, in its counter affidavit before the CAT on 9 October 2023, had said that there is no such system in the Government of India. The CAT had eventually dismissed the petition in May this year, after which Chaturvedi had knocked the HC’s doors.
But despite the DoPT’s affidavit denying the existence of the informal 360-degree evaluation process, on 6 February 2020, Dr Jitendra Singh, minister of state for PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha informed the House about the evaluation system.
“Ä system of 360-degree appraisal involving a multi-source feedback from various stakeholders including from seniors, peers and juniors, etc. has been introduced in the process of empanelment process takes into account the overall service record, vigilance status and suitability of the officers concerned,” Singh had said in the written reply.
Three years before that, in August 2017, in a report titled ‘Appraisal and Empanelment of Civil Servants under the central government’, the DoPT had in a written submission informed a parliamentary panel about what necessitated a 360-degree review of the officers for empanelment purposes.
“….The earlier system of empanelment did not fully capture the qualities of officers in terms of integrity and capability and there was a felt need to improve the mechanism. It was in this background that the revised guidelines for empanelment were put in place in April 2016. The guidelines, inter-alia, provide for collection of Multi Source Feedback from a minimum of 5 stakeholders such as seniors, juniors, peers, external stakeholders and serving secretaries. This is known as the 360-degree review and is the same as MSF,” the DoPT said in response to a query of the parliamentary panel.
The DoPT further said that the expert panel takes feedback on seven attributes — decision-making, ownership, proactiveness, delivery, leadership, honesty and suitability for higher positions. “Based on this and the assessment of Annual Confidential Report/annual Performance Appraisal Reports, the expert panel gives its recommendations. Thus, the assessment of the officer is made not just on his record, but also on the above qualities and his/her general reputation. The new system has been widely recognised as an improvement over the earlier system.”
However, the 92nd report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievance, Law headed by senior Congress leader Anand Sharma, had noted that it finds the 360-degree appraisal system “opaque, non-transparent and subjective….”
The panel recommended that the process be transparent and rule-based. “The government should frame guidelines on the entire aspects of the process of 360-degree appraisal and it should be notified.”
In February 2017, the Delhi High Court had upheld the new evaluation system for senior civil servants. A double bench of Justices S Muralidhar and Talwant Singh had refused to strike it down in a case of a senior IAS officer who had challenged the 360-degree appraisal system on the ground that it overlooked him for empanelment thrice
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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