On Valentine's day, government allows IAS, IPS couples to work in one state

In a Valentine's Day gift to All India Services officers, the government on Tuesday amended rules to mandatorily allow married couples from the IAS and IPS get the same cadre state.

However, they will not get a cadre which is the home state of either of them.

The amendment was cleared by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The rules will be applicable to officers of the three All India Services -- Indian Administrative Service, Indian Police Service and Indian Forest Service.

The decision to amend the rules was triggered by the case of 2011 batch IAS officer P Parthiban, who married his batchmate and Tamil Nadu cadre IPS officer Nisha, hailing from Delhi.

Parthiban is a native of Tamil Nadu and has been allocated Union Territories cadre which includes Delhi.

The couple had sought either the Tamil Nadu or the UT cadre to which they belonged citing their marriage, as civil services rules allow the couple to shift to one cadre state.

The earlier rule also did not make it incumbent upon the government to shift the cadres of officers mandatorily and said it may do so as far as possible.

This matter was put up before a committee that decides cases of inter-cadre transfer and deputation. The panel is headed by Secretary of Department of Personnel and Training.

The ACC on Tuesday approved that in cases where either of the officers cannot opt for the cadre state of the spouse in case it was also his or her home state, they can be allotted the immediate next cadre they had opted while filling out the detailed application form for civil services examination, an order issued by the DoPT said.

A candidate has to give his or her order of preference of a desired cadre before appearing for main examination.

The UPSC conducts the examination annually in three stages -- preliminary, main and interview-- to select IAS, IPS and IFoS officers among others.

"In case of non receipt of preference within the stipulated time from the concerned officers, they can be assigned the most deficit cadre between the two subject to receipt of No Objection Certificate from the parent cadre as well as recipient cadre," the new guidelines said.

After the amendment to the rule, Parthiban and Nisha are likely to get Gujarat cadre, as earlier opted by them, according to a senior DoPT official.