Indian
Express: New Delhi: Wednesday, 03 September 2014.
The Ministry
of External Affairs (MEA) has turned down a top bureaucrat’s request that the
system of mandatory political clearance for overseas trips by senior officials
be scrapped.
The ministry
has explained why the current system must continue, and stressed that it is the
MEA’s prerogative to decide on the suitability, desirability and level of
participation of Indian officials in engagements abroad.
Civil
Aviation Secretary Ashok Lavasa had written to Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth on
June 16, asking that the “dilatory system” of the MEA clearing all proposals
for travel abroad by officials be changed. Lavasa was learnt to have also
mentioned this at a meeting PM Narendra Modi had with Secretaries on June 4.
The cabinet
secretariat had sent the letter to the MEA with a request to examine it before
August 14. Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh wrote back on August 13, giving
detailed reasons for why Lavasa’s request could not be accepted, sources said.
The Indian
Express had reported the contents of Lavasa’s letter in its edition of August
12. According to senior government sources, at least two other Secretaries one
each from the ministries of Finance and Commerce, both of whom are frequent
fliers abroad had written similar letters to the MEA earlier.
However,
according to information obtained by The Indian Express under the Right to
Information Act (RTI), the MEA had, until July 15, cleared as many as 276
proposals for travel abroad by officials of the rank of Secretary, and “denied”
clearance in only one case.
In her reply
to Seth, the foreign secretary has argued that the context of India’s larger
bilateral and multilateral relationships is constantly evolving and dynamic,
and it is necessary for the MEA to assess proposals of foreign travel by public
servants.
Lavasa was
learnt to have suggested that the process of obtaining clearance be retained
only for countries with which India’s relations were sensitive. The MEA has,
however, said that no such list of countries could be drawn up in a fluid and
changing world.
In response
to the suggestion that the process of political clearance be bypassed where
officers were travelling to participate in bilateral talks or for training
abroad, or to countries with which India has joint working groups, the MEA has
pointed out that senior Indian officers were sometimes offered training courses
with officers of much lower rank in other countries.
The MEA has
said that political clearance was given after considering multiple aspects of
bilateral and multilateral relations in each case. Sources said Sujatha Singh’s
letter mentions that some senior officers of the Civil Aviation Ministry had a
few months ago accepted invitations from New Zealand and Turkey without
political clearance from the MEA.
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