Govt clears deck for granting organised service tag to CAPF officers

The Centre has cleared all decks to accord the 'organised service' recognition and service benefits to thousands of Central Armed Police Forces officers seeking better promotion and monetary benefits for serving large tenure of their career in areas affected by Naxalism, terrorism and insurgency.

The Ministry of Home Affairs has directed the chiefs or Directors General (DsG) of the five Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) -- CRPF, BSF, ITBP, SSB and CISF -- to forward proposals containing details of officers eligible for benefits of Non-Functional Financial Upgradation (NFFU) and Non-Functional Selection Grade (NFSG).

The order accessed by PTI stated that these details are required to be submitted to it by Thursday as the matter has been accorded "top priority" by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

A senior official said the ministry is working with the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) and will soon issue a notification in this context for granting NFFU and NFSG to Group 'A' officers of these forces.

The MHA has sought the details by the first half of Thursday and it is expected that the notification will be issued by the DoPT by this weekend, they said.

The move comes in the backdrop of recent judgements made by the Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court.

The apex court in February had upheld a Delhi High Court verdict on the subject and agreed that all the CAPFs be recognised as "organised services", saying it will remove stagnation, ensuring the promotion and other service-related benefits to officers in the same post.

The Delhi High Court on March 15 had asked the Centre to file a compliance affidavit on the subject after a retired and a serving officer of these forces filed a contempt petition before it saying the government has not complied with its directions.

In its February order, the SC had held that Group 'A' officers of theCAPFs should be given allbenefits, including NFFU from 2006 in terms of the 6th pay commission.

The top court, during this hearing, had upheld the Delhi HC's two verdicts by which it had granted "organised service" status to these forces and also to the officers of the Railway Protection Force (RPF).

NFFU is a concept introduced in the 6th pay commission and was granted to what the government termed as Group "A" organised services.

Under NFFU, if all the officers of a particular batch cannot move up the ladder owing to lack of vacancies and only one does, the others will automatically get financial upgradation as the one promoted.

However, it would only involve a financial upgrade but not rank or perks.

The recognition will also enable CAPF officers to get better deputation opportunities in other government departments that will help them gather knowledge and expertise of different domains.

Also, more command-level posts would be reserved for the cadre officers of these forces as compared to those coming on deputation from the Indian Police Service (IPS).

The SC had dismissed the appeals of Centre against the Delhi HC order, saying that in the monographs published by the DoPT right from 1986 till date, CAPFs have been shown to be a part of the central Group 'A' services.

The officers of these forces command units that are deployed to undertake anti-Naxal operations, counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency tasks, border guarding and they also render a variety of roles for maintenance of internal security and conduct of elections across the country.