Fayaz Bukhari
Srinagar, Nov 16: For the past 3 decades, there has been no Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) meeting in the Agriculture department and around 200 officers of the department in the State have retired so far as Agriculture Assistants.
According to records of the Agriculture Department, the last DPC of the department was held in 1982 and after that there were over 20 litigations in the Jammu and Kashmir High Court filed by aggrieved officers of the department leading to no DPC meeting.
Four Joint directors of the department retired recently as Agriculture Assistants as no DPC was held since they were eligible for the promotion resulting huge financial losses to them.
Those who retired recently on Joint Director posts include Inder Bhushan Bhat, former Joint Director Inputs Kashmir retired in July this year; former Joint Director Mushrooms Kashmir, Nazir Ahmad Qazi, retired in March this year; former Joint Director Inputs Jammu, VK Bakhary, retired in March this year; and former Joint Director Engineering Kashmir, V S Pathania, who retired in March last year, as Agriculture Assistants without DPC.
The no DPC meet over the decades has resulted in hundreds of vacancies at Sub-divisional Agriculture Officer, District Agriculture Officer and Chief Agriculture officers’ levels across the State.
However, in 2008 over 700 officers of the department were given promotion under order No. 279 Agri of 2008 dated 07-10-2008. But this order was challenged in the court of law as the aggrieved officers took a plea that the promotion norms were violated while issuing the order.
The government put the order in abeyance and then Financial Commissioner Home, Samuel Varghees was appointed inquiry officer who established the violations of the promotion norms.
In the order, promotion was given to 300 officers who were appointed as Rehbar-e-Zirat on consolidated salary of Rs 400 per month on May 25, 1984 under Government order No. 305 of Agri 1984 and their service for promotion was counted right from the date they were appointed as ReZs and not when they were appointed as VEWs. These 300 ReZs were later appointed as Village Extension Workers (VEW) along with 700 Agriculture graduates under Government order No. 608 Agri of 1984 dated 18-10-1984.
The promotion order No. 279 Agri of 2008 was challenged in the court of law as aggrieved officers wanted that all the 1000 VEWs should be treated as equals for promotion. The Jammu and Kashmir High Court passed an order on June 8, 2011 saying: “An exercise to treat the petitioners and other ReZ as a class distinct from other Agriculture Graduates would be without any intelligible differentia amounting to unreasonable classification and violation of Article 14 and 16 Constitution of India.”
The Division bench on 15-12-2011 upheld the single bench order after it was appealed in the Division bench.
The Supreme Court of India in its order dated 02-04-2012 also upheld the single and division bench court orders. The Apex Court in its judgement while dismissing SLP said: “In our view, the reasons assigned by the learned single and division bench of the High Court for taking the view that the petitioners are not entitled to have their seniority fixed in the cadre of Village Extension Workers from the date of their initial engagement as ReZ on fixed emolument of Rs 400 per month do not suffer from any legal infirmity and judgement under challenge does not call for interference under Article 136 of the Indian Constitution”.
However, some of the litigations to the Order No. 279 Agri of 2008 are still pending but the Agriculture Officers say that the major doubt has been cleared by the courts including apex court of the country. These officers want the DPC to be held immediately so that hundreds of officers of the department are promoted.
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