Seeram Sambasiva Rao appointed as new Excise Commissioner

The Kerala government has appointed IAS officer Seeram Sambasiva Rao as the new Excise Commissioner.Mr. Rao had served as the Officer on Special Duty to the former Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. The 2012-batch IAS officer of Kerala cadre will continue to hold all the existing additional charges alongside his new responsibility, according to the government order.Notably, the appointment marks a return to the practice of placing IAS officers in the post of Excise Commissioner, a position that had been held by IPS officers since 2016.The development is based on a recent directive from the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), which considered a petition by the Kerala IAS Association seeking a declaration that the posts notified by the Union government as belonging to the IAS Kerala cadre must be filled only by serving IAS officers.Subsequently, the Tribunal ruled that key posts including the Excise Commissioner, Director of the Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA) and Director General of the Institute of Management in Government (IMG) are IAS cadre posts, and can be held only by serving IAS officersAs a result, Additional Director General of Police M.R. Ajith Kumar was removed from the post of Excise Commissioner. Published - June 01, 2026 08:51 pm IST