It is well settled that the norms regarding recruitment and promotion of officers belonging to the Civil Services can be laid down either by a law made by appropriate Legislature or by rules made under the proviso to Article 309 of the Constitution of India or by means of executive instructions issued under article 73 of the Constitution of India in the case of Civil Services under the Union of India and under Article 162 of the constitution of India in the case of Civil Services under the State Governments. If there is a conflict between the executive instructions and the rules made under the proviso to Article 309 of the Constitution of India, the rules made under proviso to Article 309 of the Constitution of India prevail. Thus, the Recruitment Rules formulated under Article 309 will prevail over any executive instruction that may be contradictory to it. In exceptional circumstances depending upon the merit of each case such as extreme compassionate grounds, such transfers may be allowed on case to case on loan basis alone keeping in view the administrative requirements of transferee and transferred Cadre Controlling Authority. However, maximum tenure of such transfer will be three years and can by extended with the specific approval of the Board for a further period of two years depending upon the administrative requirement. It is further reiterated that the officials transferred on the loan basis shall not be considered for promotion unless they re-join their parent cadre. While clarifying that under RR 2016, there is no specific provisio allowing for ICTs, the circular notes that Rule 5 stipulates that each CCA will have its own separate cadre, unless otherwise directed by the Board. Rule 5 has been construed to mean that given that each CCA is to have its own cadre, ICTs which involve a transfer from one Commissionerate to another would no longer be permissible and accordingly all orders for such transfers which were issued on or after 26 December 2016 (the date on which RR 2016 were notified) would be non-est. The circular, however, allows that in exceptional circumstances.