The Centre on Thursday gave a one-year extension to Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba, relaxing key rules in the process. This is the third extension for Gauba, who will now become the longest-serving Cabinet Secretary in the country. The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved the service extension for Gauba, a 1982-batch Indian Administrative Service officer of Jharkhand cadre, for a period of one year beyond August 30, 2023. The extension was granted in relaxation of the AIS (Death-cum-Retirement Benefits) Rules, 1958 and Rule 56 (d) of the Fundamental Rules. The rules allow the government to give extensions 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”. This extension will allow Gauba to stay in the post of the country's top bureaucrat during the general election 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.
