Gazetted Officer

Gazetted Officer the civil servants whose appointments, posting, transfer and other career incidents in the service are cited in a weekly official gazette series. One of the major characteristics of the administrative system of Bangladesh is a rigid pattern of rank corresponding to a specific occupational type. In the early days of British rule in India, there were two major types of civil servants, covenanted and uncovenanted. The former filled the superior positions. The members of the covenanted service entered into a covenant with the east india company to serve the latter with loyalty and honesty. That was the reason why they came to be known as members of the covenanted civil service. The other category of civil servants in subordinate positions did not enter into any covenant. Hence they belonged to the uncovenanted civil service which consisted of both the Europeans and Indians. The uncovenanted civil servants were to be posted mainly to junior positions in the revenue and judicial establishments.

In the formative phase of the civil service, appointment, posting and transfer of the covenanted civil servants were to be notified in the official gazette series, printed and published by the government. One of the earliest references to it can be traced back to the late eighteenth century. With the growth of bureaucracy and consequent upon the Indianisation of the services, the distinction between covenanted and uncovenanted services disappeared. A new distinction was introduced wherein members of the civil service came to be known as gazetted and non-gazetted. Appointment, posting, transfer and other career incidents of the gazetted officers were required by law to be published in the official gazette series, indicating their superior rank and status in the service in relation to the non-gazetted government servants. [AMM Shawkat Ali]