New Delhi, Aug 31 : Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla told the Supreme Court that the Central government was able to proceed with special promotions of its employees according to their seniority without considering their status of Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe to meet demands.In response to a contempt summons, Bhalla said: “This was intended to fulfill the demands of government service without infringing any or order of this court, and upon the basis of the opinion in writing of the Attorney General (AG) of India.”
Bhalla was in responsibility of Secretary of the Department of Personnel and Training from the period from October 1st, 2020 through January 24, 2021.
He said that based on the AG’s recommendation that ad-hoc promotions to the Senior Selection (Director) Grade of the CSS were granted on December 11 in 2020 as well as January 8, 2021 solely by securing candidates based on their positions in the seniority lists, without having the SC/ST status being scrutinized.
“No restriction of postings was made in these ad-hoc promotions and no rights were granted in favor of the people being promoted,” he added in his response.
“Unfortunately the petitioner (Debanand Sahoo) has not disclosed that the promotions were made solely on the basis of the seniority of the incumbent in the lower position and on an ad-hoc basis with the caveat that they were liable to be reversed anytime until regular promotions were granted and not conferring any rights in favor of those who are promoted.”
The response also stated that these ad-hoc advertisements included a condition: those who were promoted had no rights whatsoever and could be subject to the order made by the supreme court.
Sahoo had filed the contempt complaint against Bhalla and others, citing a breach of the supreme court’s order of April 15, 2019.
In citing the top court’s decision in “Jarnail Singh and Ors Vs Lachhmi Narain Gupta and Ors’, handed down on January 28 , this year, Bhalla said pursuant to this ruling and the AG’s view, regular promotions were conducted meeting the requirements laid in the case of in the case of M Nagaraj and Ors Vs Union of India and Ors’ (2006) as and the judgment in Jarnail Singh’s case.
In the Jarnail Singh (2022) decision the supreme court laid the conditions for promotions that are regular.
Bhalla declared: “The petitioner is also one of those who received regular promotions.In this context it is claimed that there is no contempt in any way and the petitioner has filed the petition without divulging that a lot of vacant positions were in place for a lengthy time of duration in different department of the federal government causing a significant negative effects on the operation of the government.”
The Apex court on April 9 demanded a the response of Bhalla regarding Sahoo’s contempt complaint that was filed by advocate Kumar Parimal.
In April of 2019 the top court issued a direction to keep the status in place in relation with promotions of officers.
In July 2022 the DoPT submitted an application to grant ad-hoc promotions which was rejected by the Apex court.
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