All India Services and federalism

Detail

1. What an All India Service is

• All India Service (AIS): a service that is common to the Union and the states.
• The Centre recruits and trains the officers.
• The officers then spend most of their careers working for a state government.

• They can also be sent to work for the Union government.

• The permanent executive is the group of civil servants who stay in office whichever party wins an election. The political executive is the ministers who are elected and later leave office. The AIS officers form the backbone of state administration inside the permanent executive.

• The service rules come from two layers of law:
• Part XIV, Chapter I ("Services") of the Constitution, mainly Articles 309–313.
• The All-India Services Act, 1951 (Act No. 61 of 1951, passed 29 October 1951), which regulates how AIS officers are recruited and their conditions of service [3]. Rules made under this Act include the IAS (Cadre) Rules 1954 and the AIS (Discipline and Appeal) Rules 1969.

2. Article 312: how a new AIS is created

Procedure to create a new All India Service:

Step	Who acts	Requirement
1	Rajya Sabha (Council of States)	Passes a resolution saying a new AIS is "necessary or expedient in the national interest"
2	Majority for that resolution	At least two-thirds of members present and voting (special majority)
3	Parliament (both Houses)	Passes an ordinary law to create the service and to regulate its recruitment and conditions of service

[2]

• Why the Rajya Sabha? It is the House that represents the states. A new AIS takes some control over administration away from the states. So the Constitution makes the states' House agree first. This is a federal safeguard.
• Art. 312(2): the IAS and IPS are "deemed" (treated as) services created by Parliament under this Article. They continued from the colonial Indian Civil Service (ICS) and Indian (Imperial) Police.
• Indian Forest Service (IFoS): created in 1966 under the AIS Act 1951, after a Rajya Sabha resolution.
• In 1963 the AIS Act was amended to provide for three new services: the IFoS, an Indian Service of Engineers and an Indian Medical and Health Service.

• Only the IFoS was ever set up [3].

• Services proposed but never set up: engineering, medical and education services. The Sarkaria Commission (1988) favoured creating more AIS. States resisted because each new AIS adds to central control.

• Today there are only three AIS: the IAS, the IPS and the IFoS [3].

3. All India Judicial Service (AIJS)

• The 42nd Amendment (1976) added an "all-India judicial service" to Art. 312(1) [2].
• Art. 312(3): the AIJS cannot include any post below that of a district judge, as defined in Art. 236 [2][5].
• Status: in March 2023 the Union government told Parliament there was no consensus among the main stakeholders (states and High Courts), so the AIJS had not been set up [5]. (NCERT-era position: it has not been set up.)
• Debate:
• For: a merit-based national pool of judges, and more diversity on the bench.
• Against: it would weaken the control of High Courts over subordinate courts (Arts. 233–235), and judges might not know the local language and local laws.

4. Articles 312A and 313

• Art. 312A was added by the 28th Amendment (1972).
• It lets Parliament change or end the special service conditions of former Secretary of State's Services (ICS) officers who were still serving.
• These conditions included pay, leave and pension guarantees.

• The matching law is the Former Secretary of State Service Officers (Conditions of Service) Act, 1972 (Act 59 of 1972) [4].

• Art. 313 (transitional provision): service laws that existed before 1950 stay in force until Parliament or a state legislature makes new provision.

5. The three services

Service	Typical posts	Area of work
Indian Administrative Service (IAS)	Sub-Divisional Magistrate, District Collector/District Magistrate, state Secretary, Chief Secretary, Union Joint Secretary/Secretary, Cabinet Secretary	General administration, revenue, policy-making
Indian Police Service (IPS)	Superintendent of Police (SP), Inspector General (IG), Director General of Police (DGP); leaders of central police organisations (CBI, IB, CAPFs)	Law and order, leadership of the police
Indian Forest Service (IFoS)	Divisional Forest Officer, Conservator, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests	Managing forests and wildlife

• Annual intake:
• IAS: raised to 180 a year through the Civil Services Examination (CSE) from CSE-2012.

• IPS: raised to 200 a year from CSE-2020 [10].

• A committee was set up to recommend the yearly IAS direct-recruit intake for CSE-2022 to CSE-2030 [11].

6. Dual control: Centre and state

How an officer's career is controlled:

• Recruitment: the Centre recruits officers through the UPSC (Union Public Service Commission, under Art. 315), and the President appoints them.
• Cadre allocation: each officer is allotted to a state cadre. A cadre is the fixed set of posts in one state, or a joint group of states and UTs such as AGMUT, that the officer belongs to for life.

• Allocation follows the zonal cadre-allocation policy (2017), under which officers rank zones of states in order of preference.

• Daily work: the state government posts and transfers the officer and supervises day-to-day work, as collector, SP or secretary.

• Deputation: the officer can be sent to the Centre (see Section 7).

Discipline: who can punish an officer (AIS (Discipline and Appeal) Rules 1969)

• (NCERT, Class 11: "only the central government can take disciplinary action" against these officers.)
• The exact position is more detailed:

Action	State government	Central government
Suspension (temporarily removing an officer from duty while charges are examined)	Yes, if the officer is serving under it	Yes
Minor penalties (censure, withholding increments or promotion, recovering losses)	Yes	Yes
Major penalties: dismissal, removal, compulsory retirement	No; can only start proceedings and recommend	Only the Centre can impose these

• If the state and the Centre disagree on a suspension, the Centre's view prevails [6].
• Time limits on suspension:
• For charges other than corruption: up to 1 year. The inquiry must finish within that year, or the suspension is automatically revoked (cancelled).

• For corruption charges: up to 2 years, on the same terms [6].

• An IAS officer working at the Centre can be suspended only on the recommendation of the Central Review Committee, with the approval of the minister in charge of the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) [6].

• Art. 311: no civil servant can be dismissed by an authority lower than the one that appointed them. For AIS officers the appointing authority is the President, which is why dismissal rests with the Centre.
• Federalism angle: the Federalism chapter lists the AIS as a unitary (Centre-leaning) feature. The state uses the officers, but the Centre controls their careers.

7. Central deputation

• Central deputation means an AIS officer is posted from the state cadre to work for the Union government for a fixed term, then returns to the state.
• IAS (Cadre) Rules 1954, Rule 6(1):
• An officer can be deputed only with the concurrence (agreement) of the state government.
• If the Centre and the state disagree, the Central government's decision prevails.

• The state must then carry out the Centre's decision.

• Central Deputation Reserve (CDR):

• Each cadre's total authorised strength includes a CDR set at 40% of the Senior Duty Posts (senior posts in the state cadre).

• This reserve is meant to supply officers to the Centre [7][8].

• Shortage:

• The Centre says states have not been sponsoring (nominating) enough officers for central deputation [7][8].

• The gap is sharpest at Deputy Secretary and Director level.

• 2021 reform: newly recruited IAS officers do a short stint at the Centre as Assistant Secretaries before joining their state cadres [12].

8. Central Staffing Scheme (CSS)

• The Central Staffing Scheme fills posts in Union ministries at Deputy Secretary level and above for fixed tenures. The officers come from the AIS and from Group A central services.
• How it works:
• Each state sends an offer list of officers willing to go to the Centre.
• The Centre picks officers from these lists for vacant posts.

• The officers serve their tenure and return to their cadre.

• Empanelment is the process that clears an officer as fit to hold Joint Secretary, Additional Secretary or Secretary posts at the Centre. It decides who can rise to the top of the Union government.

9. The 2022 draft amendment to the Cadre Rules

What the Centre proposed (January 2022):

• The Centre asked states and UTs for comments on a proposal to amend Rule 6(1) of the cadre rules, under Section 3 of the AIS Act 1951 [7][8].
• The proposal would have done three things:
• The Centre would decide how many officers each state must send.
• States would have to release officers within a fixed time. If they did not, the officer could be relieved from the cadre on a date the Centre chose.
• The Centre could call for specific officers in cases the current rules do not cover, such as a major disaster or a national security need [7].

Opposition from the states:

• West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and other states opposed it.
• They argued it would remove the state's "concurrence" in practice and make officers answer to Delhi rather than to the elected state government.
• Trigger: in 2021 the Centre recalled West Bengal Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay to Delhi without the state's agreement, after a dispute over a cyclone-review meeting. This sharpened the conflict.

10. Cadre strength and vacancies

• Sanctioned IAS strength: about 6,800 posts.
• Vacancies as on 1 January 2025: IAS – 1,300, IPS – 505, IFoS – 1,029. These figures were given in a Parliament reply on 12 February 2026 [9].
• Example of a shortfall (AGMUT cadre): 542 IAS posts authorised, but only 406 officers in position [9].

11. The debate: "cement" or central control?

• Patel's view: Sardar Patel defended the AIS in the Constituent Assembly. He saw it as the "cement" (and "steel frame") holding the Union together. The AIS gives:
• a common national outlook;
• officers who stay neutral even when governments change;

• direct links between the Centre and the states.

• The federal critique: dual control means the officers who carry out a state's policies can be disciplined or recalled by the Centre. When different parties rule the Centre and a state, officers can get caught in divided loyalty.

• Middle position: Rule 6(1) already lets the Centre prevail. Critics say the real issue is trust and consultation, not new legal powers.

Prelims Hooks

• Art. 312: a new AIS needs a Rajya Sabha resolution passed by two-thirds of members present and voting, and then a law of Parliament. It does not need a constitutional amendment or ratification by the states.
• IAS and IPS are "deemed" created by Parliament under Art. 312(2). The IFoS was created in 1966 under the AIS Act 1951.
• The AIJS was added by the 42nd Amendment (1976). It cannot include any post below a district judge (Art. 236), and it has not yet been created.
• Art. 312A was added by the 28th Amendment (1972) and deals with former ICS (Secretary of State's Services) officers.
• Major penalties (dismissal, removal, compulsory retirement) on an AIS officer can be imposed only by the Centre. States can suspend officers and impose minor penalties.
• IAS (Cadre) Rules 1954, Rule 6(1): deputation needs state concurrence, but the Centre prevails if they disagree.
• Central Deputation Reserve = 40% of Senior Duty Posts.
• Trap: the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) is a Central service, not an AIS. The AIS is the Indian Forest Service (IFoS).

Mains Points

• AIS as a unitary feature:
• The Centre controls recruitment, cadre allocation, major discipline and deputation (AIS Act 1951; Rule 6(1)). States only manage day-to-day postings.
• This tilts the federal balance towards the Centre, and the 2022 draft amendment would have tilted it further.

• Way forward: fix deputation quotas through consultation, for example at the Inter-State Council, and keep state concurrence real.

• The case for the AIS:

• They give national integration, uniform standards and a neutral administration.
• Field experience in the states improves policy-making at the Centre.

• The real problem is the shortage at DS/Director level and about 1,300 IAS vacancies (2025). The answer is better cadre planning and higher intake, not forced deputation.

• New AIS (judicial, medical, engineering, education):

• Their supporters point to merit and national standards.
• Their critics point to the loss of state autonomy and High Court control.

• The fact that none has been created since 1966 shows how strongly the states resist.

• Alapan Bandyopadhyay case (2021): a case study in how a Centre–state political conflict can draw in civil servants. It strengthens the case for clear, rule-based procedures for deputation and recall.