Quota in promotions: State govt. begins implementing SC order

Several government employees of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes have been demoted as the State government has started implementing the Supreme Court order that struck down reservation in promotions.

However, promotions or demotions will not come into effect immediately for those who are involved in election work. To comply with the apex court order, Chief Secretary Ratna Prabha had asked all departments to complete the process, as directed by the court, and file action taken report to her office by Monday.

Since April 14 and April 15 being second Saturday and Sunday respectively, many departments complied with the order by Friday evening, sources said.

The State government has to comply with the court order as the Chief Secretary has been asked to personally appear in the court on April 25. The court had directed the State government to implement its February 2017 order to draw up the seniority list and effect promotions to general category employees, which would mean that SC/ST employees who had earlier benefited by reservation in promotion would have to be demoted to accommodate general category employees.

Some pending

While the list of demoted and promoted has been made, in some departments such as Public Works, Friday had been last date for receiving objection to the provisional list, which means that the process could take longer than expected, sources said. According to a senior government official, a large number of cases of demotions are set to take place in Energy Department, Public Works Department, and Education Department.

Additional Chief Secretary T.M. Vijaybhaskar told The Hindu that the total number of those demoted as well as those promoted will be known by Tuesday or Wednesday as the action taken report by individual departments would be sent to the Chief Secretary’s office on Monday. “The promotion committee in each department has been meeting and the process is still on. We have sought details of employees who have been affected also,” he added.

A senior official in the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms said that they were yet to get compliance report from individual departments, and that they will start getting it from next week.