Govt eases rules, Gauba to stay as cabinet secretary till after 2024 LS polls

The Centre on Thursday relaxed key rules to give a one-year extension to Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba beyond August 30, 2023, according to a personnel ministry order.

With the completion of this third extension, he will become the longest serving cabinet secretary of the country.

Till now, B D Pande had been the longest serving cabinet secretary from November 2, 1972, to March 31, 1977.

Gauba, a former Union home secretary, was in 2019 appointed to the country's top bureaucratic post for two years. He was given one-year extensions in 2021 and then in August last year.

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) has approved extension in service to Gauba, a 1982-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the Jharkhand cadre, for a further period of one year beyond 30.08.2023, in relaxation of AIS or All India Services (Death-cum-Retirement Benefits or DCRB) Rules, 1958 and and Rule 56 (d) of the Fundamental Rules, it said.

The rules allow the central government to give extension in service to the cabinet secretary, in the public interest "provided that the total term of the cabinet secretary, who is granted such extensions of service, shall not exceed four years".

The latest extension will allow Gauba to stay in the post during the general elections due early next year.

Gauba is said to be the key architect of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, under which the erstwhile state was bifurcated into union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh following the abrogation of the special status given to it under Article 370 of the Constitution.

He had also served as secretary in the Union urban development ministry and additional secretary in the home ministry, looking after the crucial left-wing extremism division, among other responsibilities.

Born in Punjab, Gauba had graduated in Physics from the Patna University. He had served in Jharkhand as the chief secretary for 15 months before returning to serve in the central government in 2016.