Letters: In public interest

This refers to your editorial titled “Dump seniority principle” (May 31). Merit is a vague term. One may ask, what was the measure of merit, say, in appointing Shiv Shankar Menon as the foreign secretary, overlooking the seniority-based claims of more than a dozen officers? Were all those superseded officers non-meritorious and incompetent? If so, how was their incompetence established? The system should be transparent, and the political leadership taking such out-of-the-box decisions must provide answers to such questions.

Seniority, in any service, is a vital factor which cannot and must not be ignored. Promotions are normally seniority-based. Every service has a set of rules. These service rules prescribe certain age on attaining which an employee would be retired. Political leaders overrule this and act in an arbitrary manner to give extensions to top officers at their will. This blocks the promotion of others who are waiting down the line. It is the system of extensions that needs to be dumped. No one is indispensable and hence no extensions in the cadre should be granted after the prescribed age of superannuation. If in view of public interest, services of a senior bureaucrat are still required for a period of time after his due date of retirement, he must be engaged ex-cadre on contract basis.

M C Joshi, Lucknow