It may look nothing short of a travesty. The 360-degree empanelment and appointment procedure, which was designed with all good intent to select the best and the brightest for appointment to the top echelons of bureaucracy, has become a nightmare to the most dedicated officers. There are numerous who believe that it hangs like Damocles sword over the future of IAS officers and it is rusting their career as well. Though much has been written about the merits/demerits of the year-old 360-degree procedure, it's becoming clear with the passage of time that on balance, the system has more demerits than merits as is reflected in the sinking confidence and drowning morale of senior serving IAS officers. The opacity and lack of rules, which broadly defines the 360 model, even invited the censure of a Parliamentary committee in its report tabled in August. Cases have piled up over the year highlighting the absolute irrelevance of the 360-degree method in selecting the finest and the best officers. Among the various live examples of the extreme injustice perpetrated by this '360 model' is cited the cases of three senior IAS officers who were not considered fit for empanelment for higher posting despite the fact that they have been handling the critical portfolios of the smart city, J&K, and currency and security printing entity (SPMCIL). Sameer Sharma (IAS:1985:AP) was deprived of joining the league of Secretaries whereas Gyanesh Kumar (IAS:1988:KL) and Praveen Garg (IAS:1988:MP) were not found suitable for Additional Secretary empanelment. The bypassing of these credible officers - if they weren't credible, they won't have been given the portfolios they handle -has come on top of denial of their dues to several other top-performing officers. The well conceived and well intended idea appeared to have been hijacked by subjective feedback about officers. The guidelines say that 360 feedback would be part of the assessment, apart from APARs of fourteen years but in practice it appears  to have been preoccupied with only one parameter i.e. subjective feedback. Errors are bound to happen when you become over enthusiastic on one aspect overlooking the established institutional tools and parameters to gauge one's competence, caliber and productivity. Yet the government shows no sign of remorse or rethinking -an attitude that doesn't bode well for winning the hearts and minds of the government's best tool of civil governance.