West Bengal: Centre’s overriding powers on officers unconstitutional, says CM Mamata Banerjee

KOLKATA: Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee shot off another letter to PM Narendra Modi on Thursday opposing the “overriding powers” the Centre was seeking to appropriate in the transfer of all-India service officials. This is Banerjee’s second letter to Modi on the issue.
The revised draft changes in the all-India service rules allow the Centre to take out officers from states at any point of time without the consent of either the officers or the states where they may be posted.
Banerjee’s letter urged Modi to withdraw the amendments and “requested” him “not to push us to the point of greater movements on this issue to protect the soul of this great democracy that India is and has been”.
“The power proposed to be usurped by the central government, by resorting to over-centralisation, is going to destroy the morale and freedom of all-India service officers... (and is) unconstitutional on the face of it. It is going to completely render them and all the state governments at the mercy of the central government since the all-India services serve as the backbone of a state’s administrative machinery,” Banerjee said.
“It will hang on the head of each officer of the all-India services like Damocles’s sword,” the letter said, adding it would “create fear psychosis”.