BENGALURU: Chief Secretary K Ratna Prabha has issued a note to all additional chief secretaries/principal secretaries to furnish details of revised seniority list by 3 pm on Friday. Apart from this, she has also asked all the department heads to submit the orders passed by departments demoting and promoting the officials pursuant to the revised seniority list. "This must be treated as an urgent court matter and compliance in all respects may be sent positively by 3 pm on April 27 without giving any scope for reminders," Ratna Prabha said.
In the note dated April 25, which is available with The New Indian Express, Ratna Prabha stated, "It may be recalled that you have already furnished a certificate stating that the consequential action in B K Pavitra case has been taken in your department. The Supreme Court, upon hearing both the parties in connection with this case, has directed the state government to furnish the above documents on May 1, 2018."
Therefore, heads of all departments have been directed to furnish copies of the revised seniority lists, orders of promotion and demotions made, necessarily in English, to the office of the principal secretary, department of personnel and administrative reforms, by 3 pm on April 27, without fail, Ratna Prabha said. She also said the departments which have not issued orders of promotion/demotion cases where the officers/officials are drafted for election duty shall collate the information in the prescribed format and send the same to the office of DPAR.
PERMISSION IS BEING SOUGHT FROM EC
On behalf of the state, the SC was informed that demotions were already made and promotions could not be made because of election code of conduct, but permission was being obtained. For this, the apex court observed that if the state informed next time, the court would pass orders on this aspect too. Meanwhile, in view of SC barring the lower courts from interfering in its order on matters pertaining to revision of seniority list of serving employees arising out of B K Pavithra's case in the state, the Karnataka Administrative Tribunal on Thursday vacated the 'status quo' order passed in more than hundred cases.
The Tribunal had asked the state government to maintain status quo as far as petitioners were concerned and reinstate them if they were demoted after hearing petitions challenging the revised seniority list. Even the HC did not grant stays in such matters when the case came up for hearing on Thursday, except ordering notice, in light of Wednesday's order of the SC which barred the HC and tribunal from interfering in its order.
TIMELINE
Prior to 1978, there was reservation in appointment for SC and ST
April 27, 1978: Policy of reservation in promotion was introduced in the state (15% for SC and 3 % for ST)
June 17, 1995: Article 16(4) introduced by the Parliament, extending the benefit of reservation in promotion to the whole country
In 2002: State government brought an Act to give consequential seniority with retrospective effect from 1978
In 2004: Article 16(4-A) was introduced by the parliament for providing consequential seniority for SC and ST
B K Pavithra and others challenged the 2002 Act before KAT which struck it down
Then, in 2014, Nagaraj and others filed appeal before the Karnataka High Court which set aside the KAT verdict
Pavithra challenged HC’s verdict before the apex court which upheld the KAT verdict on Feb 9, 2017