Contempt case against home secretary dropped

NEW DELHI: The SC on Tuesday dropped contempt proceedings against Union home secretary Ajay Bhalla for allegedly not maintaining status quo on reservation in promotion during his tenure at the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) and granted ad hoc promotion to 4,734 personnel in central secretariat service.
A bench of CJI UU Lalit and S Ravindra Bhat said ad hoc promotion was done on the basis of the opinion of AG K K Venugopal who had suggested that promotion could be granted subject to the final outcome of the case and without impinging upon the right of other employees. The SC had issued notice on a contempt petition filed by a group of aggrieved officials. It had agreed to examine the petition against Bhalla after advocate Kumar Parimal brought to the court’s notice its earlier order when it had expressly turned down the government’s plea to allow it to promote the officers during the pendency of the case.