Ad hoc promotions made on A-G's opinion to meet exgencies, Home Secretary tells SC

The Supreme Court was told that the Centre gave ad hoc promotions to its staff, purely based on their seniority, without considering their Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe status—this was done to meet the government’s exigencies, and in accordance with the Attorney General of India’s opinion.

The declaration to the top court was made by Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla in a written response to a contempt notice. Bhalla wrote that “pursuant to the opinion of the Attorney General, ad hoc promotions to the Senior Selection (Director) Grade of CSS (Central Secretariat Services) were made on December 11, 2020, and January 8, 2021.” This was done purely by selecting candidates according to their position in the seniority list, without the SC/ST status being looked at.

“No reservation of posts was made in these ad hoc promotions and no rights whatsoever were created in favour of those promoted,” he said.

From October 1, 2020, to January 24, 2021, Bhalla also held the additional charge of Secretary, Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT).

His reply stated that “unfortunately”, Debanand Sahoo who filed the contempt petition, had not disclosed the fact that these promotions were made purely on existing seniority in the lower post and on an ad hoc basis, with the condition that they were liable to be reverted at any time until regular promotions were made, and without conferring any rights whatsoever in favour of those promoted.

It also pointed out on January 28, 2022, the judgment in ‘Jarnail Singh and Ors Vs Lachhmi Narain Gupta and Ors' was delivered wherein the conditions for regular promotions were set out.

Following this, and pursuant to a subsequent opinion of the Attorney General for India, regular promotions were carried out—satisfying the conditions set out in the case of ‘M Nagaraj and Ors Vs Union of India and Ors’ (2006), as well as the judgment in Jarnail Singh case.

Disclosing that the petitioner was amongst the persons who was granted regular promotion, Bhalla said that keeping this new information in mind, “no contempt arises at all.”

He also claimed: “The petitioner has filed this petition by not disclosing the fact that a large number of vacancies continued for substantial period of time in various departments of the government, which caused serious adverse effect on its functioning.”

“These ad hoc promotions were made, subject to the condition that those promoted would have no rights whatsoever and would be subject to any orders passed by this court,” Bhalla’s response stated.

On April 9, the court had issued notice to the senior Union government officer, on a contempt petition filed by Sahoo, through advocate Kumar Parimal, for apparent violation of the top court’s April 15, 2019, order.

The court had directed that the status quo as to promotion of the officers be maintained. The DoPT made an application for permission to grant ad-hoc promotion, which was declined on July 22, 2020.

However, the DoPT, on December 11, 2020, issued promotion orders in favour of 149 officers from selection grade (deputy secretary) of the CSS to senior selection grade (director) on an ad-hoc basis.

Of this, 55 deputy secretaries belonged to the reserved category, and had taken advantage of reservation in promotion and consequential seniority in their career earlier.