The Jammu and Kashmir cadre of Indian Police Service, Indian Administrative Service and Indian Forest Service was on Thursday officially merged with the Union Territory cadre through an ordinance issued by the government.
The ordinance signed by the President Ram Nath Kovind, amending section 13 and 88 of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act 2019, and issued by the ministry of law stated that the members of IAS, IPS and IFoS for the existing cadre of Jammu and Kashmir will now become part of AGMUT (Arunachal, Goa, Mizoram and Union Territories) cadre.
The officers from these UTs can now be placed in J&K and vice-versa.
According to the ordinance, “all future allocations of All India Services for the UT of J&K and UT of Ladakh shall be made to AGMUT cadre for which necessary modifications may be made in corresponding cadre rules by the Centre”.
This J&K cadre of All India services had stopped inducting new officers after the government had recategorised the erstwhile state into two UTs – J&K and Ladakh after scrapping Article 370, which gave the state somewhat special status, on August 5, 2019.
The merger of J&K cadre into AGMUT was delayed till now as officials had sought clarification on seniority and nature of posting etc, according to an official at the Centre. J&K is considered to be a ‘hard posting’ for government officials.
The ordinance will pave the way for officials from Delhi and other UTs to be posted as District Magistrates, Superintendents of Police, or Director General and other important capacities.
It is not clear yet whether this number of officers who can be posted in J&K from other UTs will be limited and what will be the duration of their term.
The rules regarding the tenure duration etc will be included in the rules, which will be prepared by the ministry of home affairs (MHA).