BENGALURU: Foresters in Karnataka, who are direct recruits and at the forefront of protection duties, are up in arms as their promotion to the RFO posts have been sidelined. According to deputy range forest officers (all direct recruits), this is due to the prevailing confusion in some five forest circles despite the apex court order and the Ajai Mishra committee report. On their part, the Forest department said the respective Chief Conservator of Forests (CCF) of these five circles have to rectify the matter at their end.
These circles include: Kanara, Bengaluru, Chikkamagaluru, Belagavi and Ballari.

 The affected DRFOs said in these five circles, especially Kanara, the guidelines given by the apex court are not being followed while the seniority list has not been revised as per the committee report. They added, “We have submitted our memorandum to the Additional Chief Secretary (Forest) and the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF). The SC order says promotions have to be given with retrospective effect. The seniority list for promotion of directly recruited foresters has been completely mismanaged.”

Nearly 1,000 affected DRFOs have appealed to the government for rectifying the mistakes committed in the ‘promotion list’. The direct recruitment of DRFOs was done in 2010-11 and their promotion to the post of Range Forest Officers is now being done as per the Supreme Court order (Pavithra case judgment), 2017. The State government also set up a 13-member committee on this issue which gave its report in 2019. The seniority of a forester has to be revised as per the committee report given by PCCF Ajai Mishra.
The DRFOs said that the list of promotions which was prepared by the respective CCFs in the five circles is full of bloomers and not been rectified till date despite filing objections.

One of the affected DRFOs added, “Some major mistakes have been committed and notice has been issued to 30-40 foresters who have filed objections. They have to draw a proper seniority list as per the committee report. The department has agreed that mistakes have been committed but till date, no corrective measures have been taken.”

OVER TO PCCF
PCCF and Head of Forest Force Sanjay Mohan said, “I have told the CCFs and they have to take up the matter and rectify it at their end.”