Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, May 25: Division Bench of the High Court comprising Justice Tashi Rabstan and Justice Javed Iqbal Wani has ordered status-quo on the promotion of Inspectors.
The order has been passed in a petition filed by 1995 batch of Sub-Inspectors challenging the judgment of Full Bench of Central Administrative Tribunal whereby Tribunal dismissed the petition of Sub-Inspectors Executive appointed in 1995 challenging the promotion of Sub Inspector Armed in 1998.
After hearing Senior Advocates Abhinav Sharma and Rahul Pant assisted by Advocates Abhimanyu Sharma and Anirudh Sharma for the petitioners whereas battery of lawyers for the private respondents and AAG Raman Sharma for the UT, the DB ordered, “subject to the objections from the other side and till next date of hearing before the Bench, official respondents are directed to maintain the status-quo as it exists today”.
Full Bench of Central Administrative Tribunal, while dismissing the petition, directed Government to consider the feasibility of framing the Recruitment Rules for the posts of Sub Inspector and Inspector in various wings of the Jammu & Kashmir Police as well as the Rules pertaining to the maintenance of common seniority list for Inspectors, duly maintaining proper ratio between Executive Wing and Armed Wing.
In the petition, it has been submitted that the recruitment to both the wings are conducted separately up to the level of Inspector and the petitioners were appointed as SIs in the Executive Wing in the year 1995 whereas the private respondents were appointed as SIs in the Armed Wing in the year 1998. The seniority lists are maintained separately for the post of SI in these two Wings.
The promotions to the post of Inspector in these two wings are made on the basis of seniority of SIs. It so happened that the SIs of Armed Wing were promoted earlier as compared to the SIs in Executive Wing. To be precise, the private respondents, who were appointed as SIs in the year 1998, got promotion to the post of Inspector in the year 2005, whereas, the applicants, who were appointed as SIs Executive Wing in the year 1995, got promotion as Inspector in the year 2007.
The applicants contend that in the combined seniority list of Inspectors, which is maintained for promotion to the post of Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP), the names of the Inspectors from Executive Wing as well as Armed Wing are arranged only on the basis of the date of promotion to the post of Inspector and in the process, the private respondents were placed above them en bloc.
They further contend that the procedure adopted by the Government is contrary to Rule 172 of the Jammu & Kashmir Police Rules. According to them, the entire police of the State is one unit and there was absolutely no basis for maintaining separate seniority lists for Inspectors, or for that matter SIs of Executive Wing on the one hand and Armed Wing on the other.
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