Kerala state government would consider the demands of retired IAS officers to getting superannuation benefits similar to retired High Court judges.
In an RTI reply, the government stated that they would examine the IAS officers' demands.
The government also admitted that it does not have data regarding the number of retired IAS personnel eligible for benefits.
At present, retired IAS officers are getting pension as per their rank and number of years in service while retired judges in addition to pension get additional monthly perks. While retired chief justices get ₹25,000 per month, retired high court judges get ₹20,000 a month. This is the long-standing demand of Kerala IAS Association. However, no other state is giving such benefits to IAS officers.
The Kerala IAS Association is demanding similar benefits from the government.
Kerala IAS Association demands OPS
Apart from that, IAS Association's Kerala chapter had written to the department of personnel and training (DoPT) to restore the old pension scheme for the officers, who joined service after January 1, 2004. The association categorically pointed out that IAS officers should be exempted from the new pension scheme that was made applicable to All India Service (AIS) officers.
The association also pointed out multiple violations in the sections of the All-India Services Act, 1951, that was enacted to regulate recruitment and service conditions of officers recruited to AIS. The association pointed out that as per Section 3 of the Act, Centre should make rules for recruitment and regulation of service conditions of AIS officers by notifying them in the official gazette. But, no such notification was made in the official gazette to introduce NPS for AIS.
Also, in complete disregard to Section 3(1), no consultation was made with states before changing the service conditions of AIS officers, and the new pension system was introduced by giving it a retrospective effect, which again, is the violation of Section 3(1A) of the Act.
The BuckStopper, run by a group of seasoned journalists, holds the powerful accountable. The buck stops with them, as they cannot shrug off their official responsibilities.