CBEC transfers - where is transparency? Why is the Board shy of announcing the new JS (TRU) ?
The Joint Secretary, TRU is perhaps the most important post in the CBEC. (Now please don't rush to correct me; he doesn't work for the Board, but is a Government Joint Secretary). He is the one who is the manufacturer of most of the notifications and the key officer who helps the Finance Minister with his budget. By and large the most capable officers of the department get posted to TRU and they do a great thankless job without any frills of office that their less competent colleagues in the field have.
In the Transfer order No. 226/2007 dated the 29th August, 2007, the Board transferred 40 Commissioners. As per the Transfer policy, All annual transfer orders shall be normally issued by 30th April and, in any case, not later than 31st May of the year. Well, this was not the annual transfer order but a rectification order, perhaps.
In the latest transfer order, one of the 40 transferred Commissioners was the JS, TRU, who has been transferred to Chandigarhw.e.f 1.11.2007, but nobody was posted in his place. Now we understand that Vivek Johri, an exemplary officer of the 1985 batch has been posted as OSD to ultimately take over from the present incumbent, but the Board is shy to announce it, either to the media or its own web site.
Then the Board has the strange habit of issuing small transfer orders after the main order transferring one or two officers. These orders are also not made public.
For example in the order referred to above a Commissioner (Appeals) had been posted as a jurisdictional Commissioner, but within three days another order has been issued posting him to NACEN? Why? Why at all in the first place he was given a field posting, if the Board did not consider him fit for the job? And if he is not fit for the job, should he be shunted off to NACEN, the sacred temple of education in the department? And why should the Board humiliate senior officers like Commissioners with this kind of erratic transfer orders?
As per the transfer order dated 29th August, 2007, the Commissioners are to join at their new places by 7th of September, 2007. Certainly, not all of them have joined and apparently the Board is not really serious of its instructions and the field officers are not exactly in awe of the Board to follow its instructions as nothing happens if you disobey the Board instructions - technical or administrative!