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Regular-article-logo Tuesday, 22 July 2025

CM office sets 'personal' line

The Nitish Kumar government has directed all India services officers of the Bihar cadre not to pursue their personal matters by contacting the chief minister's secretariat.

Dev Raj Published 11.07.18, 12:00 AM

Patna: The Nitish Kumar government has directed all India services officers of the Bihar cadre not to pursue their personal matters by contacting the chief minister's secretariat.

In a terse letter to the officers, the government has said that such action will be deemed improper, and could attract action against the officer concerned.

The missive has led to much resentment among IAS and IPS officers, who wondered where they will go if there is any urgent personal or service related matter.

"Some officers of all India services (IAS, IPS and Indian Forest Service) frequently query (the) chief minister's secretariat about the files related to their personal matters, while such behaviour is completely against rule-18 and rule 3(1) of the All India Services (Conduct) Rules, 1968," says the letter sent by the Bihar general administration department to all IAS, IPS and IFoS officers.

Rule-18 pertains to canvassing, and says: "No member of the service shall bring or attempt to bring any political or other influence to bear upon any superior authority to further interests in respect of matters pertaining to his service under the government".

Rule-3(1) stipulates that "every member of the service shall at all times maintain absolute integrity and devotion to duty and shall do nothing which is unbecoming of a member of the service".

The letter, issued by additional secretary Dayanidhan Pandey to senior Bihar cadre officials, states that in light of rule-3(1), it is expected that they will not indulge in any such thing that is improper.

"The act of seeking information from (the) 'chief minister secretariat' about files pertaining to personal matters actually reflects improper conduct," the letter further states.

A source in the CM's secretariat said files related to personal matters usually contain issues like foreign tour, training, central deputation, earned leave applications and various types of service matters.

The letter has caused resentment among IAS and IPS officers.

"Suppose I have to attend a family function and have applied for leave, or my central deputation has been cleared and I am waiting to be relieved by the state government. I would write to the chief secretary, who would forward it to the general administration department, which will finally send it to the CM's secretariat for the chief minister's approval. If the permission is not coming I would certainly want to know the fate of my application and I would be well within my rights to contact the CM's secretariat," an IAS officer told The Telegraph on the condition of anonymity.

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