The Central Administrative Tribunal has stayed the “arbitrary” promotion of over 2,000 Group C Central Government employees on complaint that rules were bent to favour Personal Assistant of V Narayanasamy, Minister of State incharge of Department of Personnel and Training.
The CAT ruling came on Wednesday, two days after The Pioneer first published a detailed story on the irregularities and mass resentment among the employees, who questioned the Minister’s “arbitrary move” and “nepotism” to extend the selection list by including additional 2,151 posts for promotion in the Assistant Grade “just for the sake of his PA”.
“The applicants (Group C employees) are aggrieved by the arbitrary decision of the respondents (DoPT and Central Government) in excluding the already finalised seniority list in the UDCs of Central Secretariat Civil Service… It is made clear that respondents promotion against the so called available vacancies arising out of the select list year 2003, subject to the outcome of the final order,” said the stay order issued by CAT Members AK Mishra and G George Paracken.
Sending notice to the Centre on the “arbitrary decision” which affected the promotion prospects of thousands of Group C employees, the two-member Bench directed the DoPT Secretary to respond by February 9.
Last week, dozens of employees approached the CAT and alleged that the promotion list was “manipulated” and “stretched” to favour Ramagya Maurya, the Language PA of Narayanasamy, in-charge of the nodal Ministry which controls the promotions.
Before approaching the Tribunal, several employee organisations also complained to PMO against Narayanasamy. “But unfortunately PMO redirected our complaints to the same Minister,” said an employee, adding, “Ignoring the present seniority list would lead to stagnation of thousands of Upper Division Clerks for at least 10 years. We are happy that we got justice from CAT.”
The employees alleged that for favouring his PA, Narayanasamy had tweaked the Cabinet decision of 2003 and Supreme Court order on the promotion policy of Group C employees.
“A decision for extension of Select List of 2003 in the grade of UDC by inclusion of additional 2,151 posts has been approved by MoS incharge of DoPT (V Narayanasamy) in violation of SC’s guidelines and DoPT’s Office Memorandum to directly benefit Ramagya Maurya, Language PA of the MoS, who will be eligible in for grade pay of 4200 in pay band II, he is at present not eligible,” said employees in the petition before the CAT.
“Seniority list of UDC up to 2005 has been finalised as per Recruitment Rules on the basis of available substantive vacancies and Draft Seniority List of UDC for 2006 and 2007 have been circulated for finalisation. Owing to the said decision, the DoPT is going to unsettle the inter seniority between Seniority Quota and Departmental Examination candidates, which has been already rightly settled,” the petition added.
The employees told the Tribunal that many UDCs who cleared Departmental exams to achieve their present seniority position would lose their seniority. “They would have to appear in the same examination which they had cleared seven to eight years ago to appease personal staff of the Minister,” the petition stated.
Source : The Pioneer, January 27, 2012
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