CCG urges serving civil servants to uphold Constitution, resist 'partisan objectives'

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The Constitutional Conduct Group (CCG), a collective of former All-India Services officials, on Wednesday (October 7, 2026) urged serving civil servants to uphold the Constitution, alleging that “so many civil servants seem to have surrendered their independence of authority and the discretion accorded to them to allow ‘partisan objectives’ to succeed”.

In an open letter, the CCG said that constitutional values were being “openly breached” and democratic dialogue was “virtually absent, with dissent often being termed ‘anti-national’”. “Over the past decade, the Union government has rarely adopted a process of dialogue and discussion to frame policies or resolve issues,” it said, referring to demonetisation, the Goods & Services Tax, the abrogation of Article 370, the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, the farm laws, the new criminal laws, delimitation of constituencies, and the “NEET fiasco and its aftermath”.

“The most glaring example of wilful disregard of constitutional ethics is that of the present Election Commission of India (ECI) (which currently consists entirely of former IAS officers) bringing about inexplicable changes in electoral registration processes. In introducing the arbitrarily designed SIR, they used their constitutional authority to convert what until then was a routine administrative procedure into a measure designed to exclude and disenfranchise millions of genuine voters for brazenly unconstitutional, partisan, and political ends,” alleged the CCG.