Ranchi, Aug. 23: The high court has pulled up the state for depriving non-state civil service officers of the opportunity to join the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) since 2000.

A division bench comprising Justice M.Y. Eqbal and Justice Jaya Roy, while delivering the judgment on August 21 in an eight-year legal battle by a road construction engineer, chastised the state for keeping six such posts empty.

The last officer from the state engineering service to join the IAS from unified Bihar in 1998 was R.S. Verma — now the state art and culture secretary.

The court upheld the jurisdiction of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) to decide the validity of statutory provisions framed by the state. It also criticised the state for excluding the name of Arun (he is known by first name) from the list of officers recommended for appointment to IAS though the road construction department sent his name thrice.

Arun’s counsel Aparesh Kumar Singh said that the judgment had given a ray of hope to around 25,000 officers belonging to 14 non-state civil service categories who wanted to belong to the IAS cadre. Singh is fighting a similar case on behalf of Dr S.K. Chaudhary (health services) and Nagendra Thakur from education services.

Arun’s case, in a nutshell, related to appointment of officers belonging to different departments to the IAS cadre by selection from the non-state civil service (SCS) of the state. The quota of non-SCS for appointment to IAS is fixed at 15 per cent of the quota of the state civil service officers — which is one third of the entire strength of the IAS cadre in the state.

Under IAS (appointment by selection regulation), 1956, an officer of outstanding merit and ability who holds a gazetted post and who holds a post equivalent to that of deputy collector for eight years and has not crossed 54 years of age is eligible for promotion to the IAS cadre.

Arun had moved the CAT in 2001 after the state did not consider his case for appointment to IAS under the non-SCS quota despite recommendations from the road construction department.

When the CAT directed the state to invite names from the engineering department and send names of eligible officers after framing fresh equivalence criteria for filling 2002 vacancy to IAS, the state moved the high court saying the tribunal had no jurisdiction to quash the policy decision of the state.

But the high court upheld the CAT judgment and asked the state to expedite the process of filling up of the IAS vacancies.