All India Services

The All India Services are the three civil services common to the Union and the States, the Indian Administrative Service, the Indian Police Service and the Indian Forest Service, recruited by the Union under the All India Services Act, 1951 (Act 61 of 1951) and allotted to a state cadre for a career. An officer serves the state that holds the cadre, and serves the Centre on deputation, under one set of rules made by the Central Government.

That divided service is the whole of the subject. The Union recruits the officer, fixes the pay, and alone holds the power to dismiss. The state posts the officer, pays the salary, grants most of the allowances, and writes the first appraisal. Both governments hold disciplinary power, and Rule 7(2) of the All India Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1969 settles which one does what.

The practical consequence for a reader checking a figure is that almost nothing in the Central Civil Services rulebook applies. Pay comes from three service-specific Pay Rules of 2016, one per service, not from the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016. Pension comes from the All India Services (Death-cum-Retirement Benefits) Rules, 1958, because Rule 2(e) of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 excludes members of the All India Services by name. Conduct, discipline, leave, provident fund, group insurance, travelling allowance, house rent allowance and dearness allowance each have their own All India Services instrument made under section 3(1) of the 1951 Act.

This article covers the constitutional basis in Article 312, the 1951 Act and the two services it authorises that were never constituted, the 25 cadres and the formula that sizes each of them, recruitment by examination and by promotion from a State Civil Service, cadre allocation and seniority, the pay and pension codes, leave and the welfare rules, the dual disciplinary control, performance appraisal, and the deputation route to the Union.

Article 312: the constitutional basis

Article 312 of the Constitution is the provision under which an All India Service can exist at all, and it makes the creation of one a decision of the States acting through the Council of States. Clause (1) provides that “if the Council of States has declared by resolution supported by not less than two-thirds of the members present and voting that it is necessary or expedient in the national interest so to do, Parliament may by law provide for the creation of one or more all India services (including an all-India judicial service) common to the Union and the States, and, subject to the other provisions of this Chapter, regulate the recruitment, and the conditions of service of persons appointed, to any such service”.

That resolution mechanism has produced one service. The IAS and the IPS did not need it: clause (2) provides that “the services known at the commencement of this Constitution as the Indian Administrative Service and the Indian Police Service shall be deemed to be services created by Parliament under this article”. Both predate the Constitution, the IAS as the successor to the Indian Civil Service and the IPS to the Indian Police, and both were carried across by deeming. The Indian Forest Service is the one service created through clause (1). According to Chapter I of the Ministry of Home Affairs Annual Report 1966-67, the Rajya Sabha adopted a resolution under Article 312(1) in December 1961 for services in engineering, forestry and medicine and public health, and the 1951 Act was then amended, as described in the next section. An enabling resolution for an Indian Educational Service and an Indian Agricultural Service was also passed, but its amending Bill lapsed on the dissolution of the third Lok Sabha.

Two clauses of Article 312 deal with a service that does not exist. Clause (3), inserted by section 45 of the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976 with effect from 3 January 1977, provides that the all-India judicial service “shall not include any post inferior to that of a district judge as defined in article 236”. Clause (4), from the same amendment, allows the law creating it to amend Chapter VI of Part VI without counting as a constitutional amendment under Article 368. The words “(including an all-India judicial service)” in clause (1) were inserted by the same section on the same date.

No All India Judicial Service has been created in the half century since. Answering Starred Question No. 47 in the Rajya Sabha on 4 December 2025, the Minister of State (Independent Charge) in the Ministry of Law and Justice stated that, given the divergence of opinion among the major stakeholders, there is at present no consensus on the proposal. The same answer sets out the chronology: a comprehensive proposal approved by the Committee of Secretaries in November 2012, an agenda item at the Conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices in April 2013 that was deferred for further deliberation, consultation of the State Governments and High Courts that produced divergent views, discussion at the Chief Justices’ Conference of 3 and 4 April 2015, a meeting chaired by the Minister of Law and Justice on 16 January 2017, the Parliamentary Consultative Committee in March 2017, and the Parliamentary Committee on the Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes on 22 February 2021.

The All India Services Act, 1951

The All India Services Act, 1951 (Act 61 of 1951), enacted on 29 October 1951, is the law Article 312 contemplates, and its long title states its scope exactly: an Act to regulate the recruitment, and the conditions of service of persons appointed, to the All India Services common to the Union and the States. It is a short statute. Its work is done by four provisions.

Section 2 defines the expression. An All India Service means the service known as the Indian Administrative Service or the service known as the Indian Police Service, or any other service specified in section 2A. The section names two services and no more, so every question about which services qualify resolves into a question about section 2A.

Section 2A, headed “Constitution of new All India Services”, was inserted by the All India Services (Amendment) Act, 1963 (Act 27 of 1963), enacted on 6 September 1963. It empowers the Central Government, by notification in the Official Gazette and from such date as it may appoint, with different dates permitted for different services, to constitute three named services:

• the Indian Service of Engineers (Irrigation, Power, Buildings and Roads)
• the Indian Forest Service
• the Indian Medical and Health Service

Only the Indian Forest Service was ever constituted. It came into existence with effect from 1 July 1966, the date from which both the Indian Forest Service (Cadre) Rules, 1966 and the Indian Forest Service (Recruitment) Rules, 1966 are deemed to have come into force, each notified by the Ministry of Home Affairs on 1 September 1966. The Indian Service of Engineers and the Indian Medical and Health Service remain on the statute book, authorised and never brought into being, which is why an All India Service of doctors or of engineers needs no constitutional amendment and no fresh Act, only a notification that successive governments have declined to issue.

Section 3(1) is the rule-making power, and it is the provision cited at the foot of nearly every instrument on this page. The Central Government, after consultation with the Governments of the States concerned, may make rules for the regulation of recruitment and the conditions of service of persons appointed to an All India Service. Section 3(1A), inserted by the All India Services (Amendment) Act, 1975 (Act 23 of 1975) enacted on 9 May 1975, permits a rule to be given retrospective effect no earlier than the commencement of the Act, but bars retrospectivity that prejudicially affects any person to whom the rule applies. Section 3(2) requires every rule and every regulation to be laid before each House of Parliament for a total of thirty days. Section 4 continues the rules in force before 1951 and deems them made under the Act, which is why instruments dated 1954 and 1955 sit alongside the Act rather than under a repeal.

Which services are not All India Services

The Indian Foreign Service is not one, and the mistake is common because it is filled from the same Civil Services Examination. It is a Central Civil Service, Group A, appointed to the service of the Union alone, with no state cadre, no cadre allocation and no dual disciplinary control. Section 2 of the 1951 Act names only the IAS and the IPS, and section 2A has been used once.

Nor is any of the organised Group A services, which include the Indian Revenue Service, the Indian Audit and Accounts Service, the Indian Railway Management Service, constituted in 2022 from eight railway services, and the rest of the services in the Department of Personnel and Training’s draft list of 3 April 2017, which counted 52 organised services among 61 Central Group A services. Those are central services governed by the CCS rules, recruited to a single cadre controlled by one ministry. An officer of an organised Group A service can be deputed to a state, but is never allotted to one.

State Civil Services are separate again. A member of a State Civil Service is recruited by the state public service commission, serves under the state’s own service rules, and reaches an All India Service only by promotion under the quota described below. The distinction matters at the moment of promotion, because that is when the officer leaves the state code and enters the All India Services code, taking a year of allotment and a place in the national seniority list.

The cadre system

Every officer of an All India Service belongs to a cadre, and the cadre is the unit on which the whole structure is built. Rule 3 of the Indian Administrative Service (Cadre) Rules, 1954 constitutes a State Cadre or, for a group of states, a Joint Cadre; Rule 3 of the Indian Forest Service (Cadre) Rules, 1966 does the same in identical terms. There is no unattached or central cadre. An officer is allotted to a cadre on appointment and remains on it for a career, going to the Union on deputation and returning.

There are 25 cadres. The annexure to a written reply given in the Rajya Sabha on 12 February 2026 by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions lists them as AGMUT, Andhra Pradesh, Assam-Meghalaya, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Nagaland, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal. Jammu and Kashmir, a separate cadre until the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, no longer appears on that list.

Two of the 25 serve more than one state. AGMUT is the joint cadre of Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram and the Union Territories, and it is the cadre from which Delhi, Chandigarh, Puducherry and the other Union Territories are staffed. Assam-Meghalaya is the second. The All India Services (Joint Cadre) Rules, 1972 govern a joint cadre, and Rule 1(ii) excludes the Joint Cadre of Union Territories from their application, so AGMUT is administered outside them. Under Rule 2(a) and Rule 4(1) of the 1972 Rules the Joint Cadre Authority is a committee of one representative of each constituent State Government, who may be either a member of an All India Service or a Minister in that state’s Council of Ministers. Rule 3 applies the rest of the All India Services rules to a joint-cadre officer subject to the modifications in Rule 6.

Each service has its own cadre controlling authority at the Centre. The Department of Personnel and Training controls the IAS, the Ministry of Home Affairs the IPS, and the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change the Indian Forest Service. Those three authorities determine the vacancies for each cadre every year, including the break-up into unreserved, Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, Other Backward Class, insider and outsider vacancies.

How the size of a cadre is computed

A cadre’s authorised strength is not a single negotiated number. It is built from the count of senior duty posts by a formula printed in the Schedule to the Indian Administrative Service (Fixation of Cadre Strength) Regulations, 1955, made under Rule 4(1) of the Cadre Rules, and every cadre entry follows the same seven items.

Source: Schedule to the Indian Administrative Service (Fixation of Cadre Strength) Regulations, 1955. Some cadre entries word items 2 to 4 as “not exceeding” the stated percentage, others as “at the rate of”.

Two figures in that table do most of the arguing. The Central Deputation Reserve at 40% of senior duty posts is a reserve of posts inside the cadre, sized so that officers can go to the Union without leaving the state short; it is not a quota of officers a state must send, and Rule 6(1) of the Cadre Rules requires the concurrence of the State Government before any individual goes. The promotion and selection quota at 33 1/3% is the share of the cadre reserved for officers rising from a State Civil Service.

Rule 4(2) of the Cadre Rules requires the Centre, in consultation with the State Governments, to re-examine the strength and composition of each cadre ordinarily every five years. That exercise is the cadre review. Rule 10 supplies the counterweight to a state that leaves posts unfilled: a cadre post may not be kept vacant beyond six months without central approval. A State Government may add a cadre post for up to two years, extendable with central approval by up to three further years.

Strength, officers in position and vacancies

All three services are short of officers, and the Indian Forest Service is short by almost a third. The figures below come from a written reply given in the Rajya Sabha on 12 February 2026, reproduced in Press Information Bureau release 2226914 of the same date, which records them as taken from the Civil Lists for the IAS, IPS and IFoS as on 1 January 2025.

Figures as on 1 January 2025. The shortfall column is computed by salary-calculator.in from the two published columns and is not stated in the reply. Adding the three rows gives 15,169 sanctioned posts against 12,335 officers in position.

A later count exists for the IAS alone. The IAS e-Civil List 2026, the 71st edition, released by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions on 22 June 2026, puts the authorised strength at 7,026 and officers in position at 5,755 as on 1 January 2026, a shortfall of 1,271. The two sets are a year apart and should not be mixed into one table.

Direct recruitment runs at a fixed annual number for the IAS. A written reply in the Lok Sabha on 25 March 2026, reproduced in Press Information Bureau release 2244918, records that 180 candidates have been recruited to the IAS in each Civil Services Examination year since 2012, with 4% of seats reserved for candidates with benchmark disabilities, and that as on 1 January 2025 there were no backlog vacancies in the IAS and no backlog reserved posts in the IPS. At 180 a year against a shortfall in four figures, the arithmetic of the vacancy position is not self-correcting.

Recruitment: examination, promotion and selection

An officer enters an All India Service by one of three doors for the IAS and one of two for the IPS, and the difference between them is a real one that survives in the current rules.

Rule 4(1) of the Indian Administrative Service (Recruitment) Rules, 1954 provides for recruitment by competitive examination, by promotion of a substantive member of a State Civil Service, and by selection, in special cases, from among persons holding a gazetted post substantively in connection with the affairs of a State who are not members of a State Civil Service. Rule 8(1) carries the promotion route, on the recommendation of the State Government, in consultation with the Union Public Service Commission and in accordance with the Indian Administrative Service (Appointment by Promotion) Regulations, 1955, which govern the Selection Committee and the Select List. Rule 8(2) carries the selection route for a person of outstanding ability and merit.

Rule 9(1) is the quota, and it sits in the Recruitment Rules, not in the Promotion Regulations. The number of persons recruited under Rule 8 in any state or group of states may not at any time exceed 33 1/3% of the senior posts under the State Government, the Central Deputation Reserve, the State Deputation Reserve and the Training Reserve for that cadre in the Schedule to the Fixation of Cadre Strength Regulations, 1955. A proviso caps the Rule 8(2) selection route at 15% of the persons recruited under Rule 8, and an Explanation ignores fractions. Rule 9 was last amended by Department of Personnel and Training Notification No. 14015/51/96-AIS(I) dated 31 December 1997, G.S.R. 729(E) of the same date.

The IPS has two routes and not three. Rule 4(1) of the Indian Police Service (Recruitment) Rules, 1954 provides for a competitive examination and for promotion of substantive members of a State Police Service, and the selection route was deleted by Ministry of Home Affairs Notification No. 3/31/56-AIS(III) dated 17 April 1957. The 33 1/3% cap appears at Rule 9(2), computed on the same four components and referred to the Indian Police Service (Fixation of Cadre Strength) Regulations, 1955. No limited competitive examination route is in force under the current IPS Recruitment Rules.

One distinction worth holding on to: Rule 9(1) of the IAS rules caps the number of persons recruited by promotion, while item 5 of the cadre strength schedule expresses the same third as a number of posts. The two are usually treated as one, and the instruments word them differently, so a sentence saying that a third of IAS officers are promotees states neither.

Cadre allocation

A candidate does not choose a cadre freely. From the Civil Services Examination 2026 and the Indian Forest Service Examination 2026, cadres are allotted under the Cadre Allocation Policy for the All India Services issued as Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 13013/01/2024-AIS-I dated 23 January 2026, which paragraph 9 issues in supersession of the existing policy.

Paragraph 2 arranges the 25 state and joint cadres in alphabetical order in four groups. Group-I is AGMUT, Andhra Pradesh, Assam-Meghalaya, Bihar and Chhattisgarh. Group-II is Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh. Group-III is Maharashtra, Manipur, Nagaland, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim and Tamil Nadu. Group-IV is Telangana, Tripura, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Paragraph 5 rotates the order each year, moving the first group to the bottom.

Insider vacancies are filled first. Under paragraph 3.1, allocation of insiders is strictly by rank and the vacancy available at the candidate’s turn, subject to the candidate’s willingness to be allocated to the home state, and a candidate who does not express that willingness “shall not be considered for his/her Home cadre at all”. Under paragraph 3.2 the insiders are slotted into cycles of 25, one per cadre. An insider vacancy that cannot be filled even by exchange between categories becomes an outsider vacancy and is not carried forward, under paragraph 3.7.

Outsider vacancies follow, PwBD candidates first. A PwBD candidate may name one cadre other than the home cadre under paragraph 4.1.2. The other outsiders are dealt one per cadre in order of merit under paragraph 4.2.2, the first cycle beginning with Group-I cadres, the second with Group-II, and so on. Paragraph 8 asks for IAS allocation to be done preferably before the Professional Course at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration begins, and for IPS and IFoS allocation immediately after appointment.

The superseded policy, issued as Office Memorandum No. 13013/2/2016-AIS-I dated 5 September 2017, governed the Civil Services Examinations 2017 to 2025. It grouped the cadres into five geographic zones, and a candidate ranked the zones and then one cadre from each zone in turn; home cadre allocation against an insider vacancy required a first preference both for the home zone and for the home cadre within it. A partial modification of even number, after the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, deleted the Jammu and Kashmir cadre from Zone-I from the Civil Services Examination 2019 onwards.

Seniority and the year of allotment

Seniority in an All India Service runs on the year of allotment, a single figure that fixes an officer’s place in the service for a career and travels with the officer across a cadre transfer. The Indian Administrative Service (Regulation of Seniority) Rules, 1987, notified as G.S.R. 896(E) on 6 November 1987 in replacement of the 1954 rules of the same name, govern it for the IAS. The Indian Police Service (Regulation of Seniority) Rules, 1988 and the Indian Forest Service (Regulation of Seniority) Rules, 1997 do the same for the other two services. There is no single All India Services seniority rule covering all three.

Rule 3(3)(i) fixes the year of allotment of a direct recruit as the year following the year in which the competitive examination was held, with a proviso for an officer permitted to join probationary training with the direct recruits of a later year, who takes that later year. Rule 3(3)(ii) fixes a promotee’s year with reference to the year for which the Selection Committee met to prepare the select list on which the appointment rests, read with continuous service in the State Civil Service and subject to a floor below which no year may be assigned. Rule 4 settles inter se seniority within a year of allotment, and provides that on inter-cadre transfer the year of allotment remains unchanged, the officer taking a position among the direct recruits of that year in the receiving cadre.

Probation follows recruitment and differs by service. An IAS officer serves two years under the Indian Administrative Service (Probation) Rules, 1954, extendable, with confirmation on satisfactory completion and a departmental examination in the way. The IPS has its own Probation Rules of 1954 and the Indian Forest Service its own of 1968, with the final examination governed by the IAS (Probationers’ Final Examination) Regulations, 1955, the IPS (Probationers’ Final Examination) Rules, 2023, G.S.R. 377(E) dated 19 May 2023, which superseded the 2012 Rules, and the Indian Forest Service (Probationers’ Training and Evaluation) Rules, 2023, G.S.R. 862(E) dated 23 November 2023, which superseded the IFS Final Examination Regulations of 2016. Each service has its own probation and examination instruments, and probation in the All India Services works through it rule by rule.

Pay

Basic pay for all three services is read off the same pay matrix as for a central civil servant, from three separate sets of rules that are not the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016. Each was made by the Department of Personnel and Training under section 3(1) of the All India Services Act, 1951 and took effect from 1 January 2016.

Entry is identical across the three. Rule 5(1) of each set of rules places a direct recruit at the first cell of Level 10 of the pay matrix, Rs. 56,100 a month. The ladder above it runs Junior Scale at Level 10, Senior Time Scale at Level 11, Junior Administrative Grade at Level 12, Selection Grade at Level 13, Super Time Scale at Level 13A and Level 14, and the grades above Super Time Scale at Levels 15, 16 and 17. For the Indian Forest Service the first cells of those levels are Rs. 67,700, Rs. 78,800, Rs. 1,23,100, Rs. 1,31,100, Rs. 1,44,200, Rs. 1,82,200, Rs. 2,05,400 and Rs. 2,25,000, and its Super Time Scale grades carry the designations Conservator of Forests and Chief Conservator of Forests.

Only the IAS reaches Level 18. Rs. 2,50,000 a month is drawn by the Cabinet Secretary alone, and the Apex Scale of Rs. 2,25,000 at Level 17 is the ceiling for the IPS and the Indian Forest Service. The IAS also draws two additional increments that the other two services do not, granted on promotion to the Senior Time Scale, the Junior Administrative Grade and the Selection Grade under Rule 3(1)(B) read with Rules 5(2), 5(5) and 5(6) of its Pay Rules. Detail on each ladder, with the eligibility service for every grade, is in the articles on IAS salary and IPS salary.

Schedule II of the Indian Forest Service (Pay) Rules, 2016, substituted by Notification G.S.R. 511(E) dated 29 May 2018 with effect from 28 September 2016, lists the state posts above the senior scale and the level attaching to each. In the Andhra Pradesh entry the post of Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Head of Forest Force carries Level 17 and the post of Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) and Chief Wildlife Warden carries Level 16.

Allowances: the state pays, and the state decides

Basic pay is uniform across all 25 cadres. In-hand pay is not, and the rule that produces the difference is Rule 2(b) of the All India Services (Compensatory Allowance) Rules, 1954, notified as No. 20/1/54-AIS(II) on 14 September 1954, which defines “Government” for a member serving in connection with the affairs of a State as the government of that State. Rule 3 then leaves a compensatory allowance and the conditions on which it is granted to the general or special orders of the government under whom the member is serving.

The All India Services have their own allowance instruments, parallel to the central civil orders and not copies of them: the All India Services (Dearness Allowance) Rules, 1972, the All India Services (House Rent Allowance) Rules, 1977, the All India Services (Travelling Allowances) Rules, 1954, the All India Services (Leave Travel Concession) Rules, 1975, the All India Services (Medical Attendance) Rules, 1954 and the All India Services (House Building Advance) Rules, 1978. Where no All India Services rule covers a matter at all, Rule 2 of the All India Services (Conditions of Service, Residuary Matters) Rules, 1960 sends it to the rules applicable to the Central Services, Class I for a Union posting and to the State Civil Services, Class I for a state posting.

So an in-hand figure for an All India Service officer is only meaningful with the posting attached. An officer on central deputation draws dearness allowance, house rent allowance and transport allowance at the Union’s rates, currently 60% for dearness allowance. An officer in a district posting in a state cadre draws what that state’s orders provide, including the official vehicle and the residence, neither of which has a central instrument behind it.

Leave

Leave for an All India Service officer comes from the All India Services (Leave) Rules, 1955, made under section 3(1) and published by Notification No. 5/2/53-AIS(II) dated 12 September 1955, G.S.R. No. 1979 of 17 September 1955. The CCS (Leave) Rules do not apply of their own force, though the two codes agree on most figures.

Rule 10(1)(a) credits the leave account with 30 days of earned leave in a calendar year, in advance, in two instalments of 15 days each on 1 January and 1 July. The proviso is the genuinely All India Services provision: an officer working in the North East, or on inter-cadre deputation to a North Eastern State, is credited 40 days a year in two instalments of 20 days. Rule 10(1)(b) reduces the credit by one-tenth of any extraordinary leave taken in the previous half-year, up to a maximum of 15 days. Rule 10(1)(c) caps accumulation at 300 days. An officer appointed during a half-year is credited at 2 1/2 days for each completed calendar month likely to be served in it under Rule 10(1)(d), and at 3 1/3 days a month in the North East.

Rule 18(D), as substituted by the All India Services (Leave) Amendment Rules, 2023 (G.S.R. 562(E) dated 28 July 2023), grants child care leave to a female member and to a single male member of the Service, for a maximum of 730 days across an entire career, to care for the two eldest surviving children up to the age of eighteen. Leave salary is the full pay drawn for the first 365 days and 80% of that pay for the next 365. The leave is limited to three spells a calendar year (six for a single female member), no spell may be shorter than five days, and it runs on a separate leave account that is not debited to any other. Two further regulations sit under the Leave Rules: the All India Services (Special Disability Leave) Regulations, 1957, made under Rule 16(1), and the All India Services (Study Leave) Regulations, 1960, made under Rule 17(1).

Provident fund, insurance and medical cover

The All India Services (Provident Fund) Rules, 1955, published by Notification No. 12/1/54-AIS-II dated 12 September 1955, govern the provident fund. Subscriptions earn interest at the rate the Department of Economic Affairs declares each quarter for the statutory funds, which names the All India Services Provident Fund alongside the General Provident Fund and the State Railway Provident Fund. That rate has been 7.1% a year in every quarter since 1 April 2020.

Group insurance works by adoption and not by an independent scheme. Rule 3(1) of the All India Services (Group Insurance) Rules, 1981 applies the Central Government Employees Group Insurance Scheme, 1980, as it applies to officers of the Central Civil Services Group A, mutatis mutandis to members of the Service. Rule 4 bars membership of a State group insurance scheme except as the rules provide. The Schedule to the 1981 Rules reproduces Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum No. F.7(5)-EV/89 dated 15 May 1989, whose paragraph 5.2 puts a Group A employee on eight units at Rs. 15 a unit, so an All India Service officer subscribes Rs. 120 a month for Rs. 1,20,000 of insurance cover with effect from 1 January 1990. Those figures have not been revised since.

Medical attendance follows the posting. The All India Services (Medical Attendance) Rules, 1954 govern, and it is for the State Government to prescribe the rates for an officer serving it, falling back on its own Class I rules where it has not. An officer with headquarters outside Delhi who visits on tour or leave takes facilities under the 1954 Rules and not under the Central Government Health Scheme.

Pension

Pension for an All India Service officer turns on a single date: 1 January 2004. The second proviso to Rule 1(2)(b) of the All India Services (Death-cum-Retirement Benefits) Rules, 1958 excludes persons appointed to the Service on or after that date from those rules. An officer appointed earlier draws pension under Rule 18(1)(b), computed at 50% of emoluments or of average emoluments, whichever is more beneficial, after not less than ten years of qualifying service, with Rule 18(1-A) adding the additional pension at 80, 85, 90, 95 and 100 years of age.

Rule 2(e) of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021, notified as G.S.R. 868(E) on 20 December 2021, excludes members of the All India Services by name. The pension calculation under Rule 44 of those rules, which governs a central civil servant, therefore does not reach an All India Service officer, and Rule 18 of the 1958 Rules is the provision to read instead. Both arrive at 50%, by different routes and under different authorities.

An officer appointed on or after 1 January 2004 is on the National Pension System, with the Unified Pension Scheme available as an option. The CCS (Implementation of Unified Pension Scheme under National Pension System) Rules, 2025 do not apply to an All India Service officer. The route is the PFRDA regulations gazetted on 19 March 2025 read with Department of Personnel and Training letter No. 25014/01/2025-AIS-II (Pension) dated 30 April 2025, and the option is exercised through the state government the officer is serving. Commutation runs on the All India Services (Commutation of Pensions) Regulations, 1959, made under Rule 25 of the 1958 Rules.

Retirement and premature retirement

Rule 16(1) of the All India Services (Death-cum-Retirement Benefits) Rules, 1958 retires an officer from the afternoon of the last day of the month in which the age of 60 is attained, with a proviso retiring an officer born on the first of a month on the afternoon of the last day of the preceding month. A separate proviso allows an officer holding the post of Chief Secretary to a State Government an extension of up to six months on the state’s recommendation with prior central approval, and Rule 16(1A) allows an extension in the public interest for the incumbents of a short list of named posts, among them the Cabinet Secretary, the Defence Secretary, the Home Secretary, the Director of the Intelligence Bureau, the Secretary of the Research and Analysis Wing and the Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation.

Premature retirement runs on Rule 16(3), substituted by Department of Personnel and Training Notification No. 25013/02/2005-AIS(II) dated 31 January 2012. The Central Government, in consultation with the State Government, may retire an officer in the public interest on three months’ notice or three months’ pay in lieu, after a review at 15 years of qualifying service, at 25 years of qualifying service, or on attaining the age of 50. This is the All India Services counterpart of FR 56(j) for a central civil servant, and like FR 56(j) it is not a penalty.

Discipline: who may punish, and who may dismiss

Disciplinary control over an All India Service officer is divided between two governments, and the division is set out in Rule 7 of the All India Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1969, published by Notification No. 7/15/63-AIS-II dated 20 March 1969. Rule 7(1)(b)(i) makes the Government of the State competent to institute proceedings and to impose a penalty where the act or omission was committed while the officer was serving in connection with the affairs of that State. The Central Government is competent for an officer under training, unless the state selected the officer for the training and bore its entire cost, and in any case not otherwise provided for. Where the officer was on leave, the Government that sanctioned the leave is competent; where under suspension, the Government that placed the officer under suspension.

The limit on the state’s power is one sentence. Rule 7(2): “The penalty of dismissal, removal or compulsory retirement shall not be imposed on a member of the Service except by an order of the Central Government.” A State Government may impose every other penalty in rule 6, from censure up to the major penalties of reduction in clauses (v) and (vi); it may not end the officer’s service. Rule 7(3) adds a consultation requirement where the punishing Government is not the Government on whose cadre the officer is borne, sends a joint-cadre case to the Joint Cadre Authority, and refers a disagreement between the Centre and a state, or between two states, to the Central Government for decision in consultation with the Union Public Service Commission.

Rule 6(1) lists the penalties in two groups. The minor penalties are censure, withholding of promotion, recovery from pay of pecuniary loss caused to Government by negligence or breach of orders, withholding of increments of pay, and reduction to a lower stage in the time scale for up to three years without cumulative effect and without affecting pension, the last of these inserted by Notification No. 11018/3/98-AIS-III dated 1 June 2000. The major penalties are reduction to a lower stage in the time scale for a specified period, reduction to a lower time scale, grade or post, compulsory retirement, removal from service and dismissal from service. Compulsory retirement as a penalty carries a proviso allowing retirement benefits under the 1958 Rules to be paid at a reduced scale of not less than two-thirds. Removal is not a disqualification for future employment under the Government; dismissal ordinarily is.

Two penalties are mandatory in two cases. The first proviso to Rule 6(1), inserted by Notification No. 11018/7/87-AIS-III dated 26 February 1988 and extended by Notification No. 11018/5/2000-AIS(III) dated 4 April 2002, provides that where a charge of possessing assets disproportionate to known sources of income, or of accepting gratification other than legal remuneration as a motive or reward for an official act, is established, the penalty of removal or dismissal shall be imposed. A second proviso permits any other penalty in an exceptional case for special reasons recorded in writing. Rule 8(1) requires an inquiry before any major penalty, held in the manner provided in the rules or under the Public Servants (Inquiries) Act, 1850. Article 311 of the Constitution sits above all of it.

Conduct and the property return

The All India Services (Conduct) Rules, 1968, published by Notification No. 8/91/62-AIS(III) dated 18 December 1968 and gazetted as G.S.R. No. 3 on 4 January 1969, are the code of conduct for all three services, in place of the CCS (Conduct) Rules, 1964. The rule most often asked about is Rule 16, on property.

Rule 16(1) requires a return on first appointment of immovable property owned, inherited or acquired, along with shares, debentures, postal cumulative time deposits and cash including bank deposits, other movable property, and debts and other liabilities, with movable items below two months’ basic pay reported in a lump sum. Rule 16(2) requires an annual return of immovable property, in a form prescribed by the Government, covering property held in the officer’s own name, in the name of a family member or in the name of any other person. The rule prescribes no date. The 31 January deadline comes from Department of Personnel and Training letter No. 11017/74/93-AIS(III) dated 4 January 1994, which asks State Governments to ensure the return is filed for every calendar year by 31 January of the next year, and records that failure to file is good and sufficient reason to institute disciplinary proceedings. A citation to “Rule 16 of the Conduct Rules” for the date is therefore wrong in its instrument, though right in its figure.

Rule 16(3) bars the acquisition or disposal of immovable property by lease, mortgage, purchase, sale, gift or otherwise without the previous knowledge of the Government, and requires previous sanction where the other party has official dealings with the officer. Rule 16(4) requires intimation of any transaction exceeding two months’ basic pay within a month of completion. Rule 16(5) allows the Government to call for a full statement of movable or immovable property at any time, and Rule 16A covers property situated outside India. The All India Services (Prevention of Sexual Harassment) Regulations, 1998 sit alongside the Conduct Rules in the same volume of the code.

Performance appraisal

The All India Services (Performance Appraisal Report) Rules, 2007, notified as G.S.R. No. 197(E) on 14 March 2007 by Notification No. 11059/18/2002-AIS-III, replaced the All India Services (Confidential Rolls) Rules, 1970 and converted a confidential report into a disclosed appraisal. The rules define the reporting, reviewing and accepting authorities and require the timeframes in Schedule 2 to be observed at each stage. The APAR of a central civil servant follows a parallel but separate instrument.

The schedule runs on two columns, and an officer below the Super Time Scale works to dates a month earlier than an officer in it.

Source: Schedule 2, paragraph 9.1, All India Services (Performance Appraisal Report) Rules, 2007, for IAS officers, the reporting year being the financial year. Paragraph 9.2 requires the completed report to reach the cadre controlling authority by 31 March of the following year, after which the authority lists the reports not received and follows up with the Secretaries of the ministries concerned and the Chief Secretaries of the states.

Central deputation

Movement to the Union runs on Rule 6(1) of the Indian Administrative Service (Cadre) Rules, 1954, and on Rule 6(1) of the Indian Forest Service (Cadre) Rules, 1966 in identical terms. A cadre officer may, with the concurrence of the State Government or Governments concerned and the Central Government, be deputed for service under the Central Government, under another State Government, or under a company, association or body of individuals wholly or substantially owned or controlled by either. The proviso settles a deadlock in the Centre’s favour: where the governments disagree, the matter is decided by the Central Government and the State Government gives effect to that decision.

The posts an officer goes to at the Centre are filled through the Central Staffing Scheme, which supplies Deputy Secretary, Director, Joint Secretary, Additional Secretary and Secretary posts in the ministries from the All India Services and the organised Group A services, with Joint Secretary and above open only to officers who have cleared empanelment. The Central Deputation Reserve of 40% is what makes the movement possible without leaving the cadre short, and the concurrence requirement in Rule 6(1) is what makes it a negotiation between two governments for every individual officer. Pay, the deputation (duty) allowance, tenure and the return to the cadre are covered in the article on deputation to central government.

The 8th Central Pay Commission

Members of the All India Services are inside the remit of the 8th Central Pay Commission. Clause 2(a)(ii) of the Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure Resolution F. No. 01-01/2025-E.III(A) dated 3 November 2025, constituting the Commission under Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai, lists them among the nine categories covered, and the Commission is to report within 18 months of its constitution, with interim reports permitted.

Nothing beyond that has been decided. No report has been submitted, no fitment factor exists, no revised matrix has been published, and no implementation date has been notified. Any circulating figure for a revised minimum pay or a revised Apex Scale is a projection with no order behind it. When a revision does come, it will reach the All India Services through three fresh sets of service Pay Rules made under section 3(1) of the 1951 Act, in the same pattern as 2016, and not through the central civil rules.

Related Articles

• Indian Administrative Service
• Indian Police Service
• Indian Forest Service
• Indian Foreign Service
• IAS salary
• IPS salary
• Cabinet Secretary pay
• Article 312 of the Constitution
• Article 311 of the Constitution
• Article 309 of the Constitution
• All India Services pay rules, 2016
• All India Services (Conduct) Rules, 1968
• All India Services (Leave) Rules, 1955
• All India Services (Group Insurance) Rules, 1981
• Probation in the All India Services
• Union Public Service Commission
• Civil Services Examination
• Cadre review
• Central Staffing Scheme
• Deputation to central government
• Deputation (duty) allowance
• Department of Personnel and Training
• Ministry of Home Affairs
• Organised Group A services
• Central government employees
• Central government jobs
• CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016
• CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021
• CCS (Conduct) Rules, 1964
• CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965
• CCS (Leave) Rules, 1972
• Pay matrix
• Basic pay
• Dearness allowance
• House rent allowance
• Transport allowance
• General Provident Fund
• Central Government Employees Group Insurance Scheme
• Central Government Health Scheme
• Central government pension
• Pension calculation
• National Pension System
• Unified Pension Scheme
• Old Pension Scheme
• Qualifying service
• Retirement age
• Premature retirement
• FR 56(j)
• Seniority
• Promotion
• Non-functional upgradation
• APAR
• Departmental inquiry
• Compulsory retirement
• Lien
• 7th Central Pay Commission
• 8th Central Pay Commission
• Fitment factor
• State pay commission
• Disproportionate assets

External references

• All India Services Act, 1951, and the rules made under it
• All India Services (Leave) Rules, 1955
• All India Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1969
• All India Services (Performance Appraisal Report) Rules, 2007
• All India Services (Joint Cadre) Rules, 1972
• Indian Administrative Service (Cadre) Rules, 1954
• Indian Forest Service (Cadre) Rules, 1966
• Cadre strength and vacancies in the All India Services, reply of 12 February 2026

References

1. Constitution of India, Article 312, clauses (1) to (4), clauses (3) and (4) and the words “(including an all-India judicial service)” inserted by section 45 of the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976 with effect from 3 January 1977.
2. All India Services Act, 1951 (Act 61 of 1951), enacted 29 October 1951: sections 2, 2A, 3(1), 3(1A), 3(2) and 4. Section 2A inserted by the All India Services (Amendment) Act, 1963 (Act 27 of 1963), enacted 6 September 1963; section 3(1A) inserted by the All India Services (Amendment) Act, 1975 (Act 23 of 1975), enacted 9 May 1975.
3. Indian Administrative Service (Cadre) Rules, 1954, Rules 3, 4, 6 and 10, with the Indian Administrative Service (Fixation of Cadre Strength) Regulations, 1955; Indian Forest Service (Cadre) Rules, 1966 and Indian Forest Service (Recruitment) Rules, 1966, both notified 1 September 1966 and deemed in force from 1 July 1966; All India Services (Joint Cadre) Rules, 1972, Rules 1(ii), 2(a), 3 and 4(1).
4. Indian Administrative Service (Recruitment) Rules, 1954, Rules 4(1), 8 and 9, Rule 9 as amended by Notification No. 14015/51/96-AIS(I) dated 31 December 1997, G.S.R. 729(E); Indian Police Service (Recruitment) Rules, 1954, Rules 4(1) and 9(2), the selection route deleted by Notification No. 3/31/56-AIS(III) dated 17 April 1957.
5. Cadre Allocation Policy for the All India Services, Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 13013/01/2024-AIS-I dated 23 January 2026, paragraphs 2 to 9; superseded policy, Office Memorandum No. 13013/2/2016-AIS-I dated 5 September 2017, paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 11 and 12, with the Office Memorandum of even number in partial modification deleting the Jammu and Kashmir cadre from Zone-I.
6. Indian Administrative Service (Pay) Rules, 2016, G.S.R. 870(E) dated 8 September 2016; Indian Police Service (Pay) Rules, 2016, G.S.R. 910(E) dated 23 September 2016; Indian Forest Service (Pay) Rules, 2016, G.S.R. 924(E) dated 28 September 2016, Schedule II substituted by G.S.R. 511(E) dated 29 May 2018.
7. All India Services (Death-cum-Retirement Benefits) Rules, 1958, Rules 1(2)(b), 16(1), 16(1A), 16(3) and 18; Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 2021, G.S.R. 868(E) dated 20 December 2021, Rule 2(e); Department of Personnel and Training letter No. 25014/01/2025-AIS-II (Pension) dated 30 April 2025 on the Unified Pension Scheme.
8. All India Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1969, Notification No. 7/15/63-AIS-II dated 20 March 1969, Rules 6, 7 and 8; All India Services (Conduct) Rules, 1968, Notification No. 8/91/62-AIS(III) dated 18 December 1968, Rule 16, with Department of Personnel and Training letter No. 11017/74/93-AIS(III) dated 4 January 1994 on the annual immovable property return.
9. All India Services (Leave) Rules, 1955, Notification No. 5/2/53-AIS(II) dated 12 September 1955, Rules 10 and 18(D), with rule 18(D) as substituted by G.S.R. 562(E) dated 28 July 2023; All India Services (Group Insurance) Rules, 1981, Rules 3 and 4 and the Schedule reproducing Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum No. F.7(5)-EV/89 dated 15 May 1989.
10. All India Services (Performance Appraisal Report) Rules, 2007, G.S.R. No. 197(E) dated 14 March 2007, Schedule 2; Indian Administrative Service (Regulation of Seniority) Rules, 1987, G.S.R. 896(E) dated 6 November 1987, Rules 3 and 4; Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure Resolution F. No. 01-01/2025-E.III(A) dated 3 November 2025, clause 2(a)(ii).