CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court has ruled that a government employee cannot be granted regular promotion while a Vigilance case is pending against him.
The ruling came on Friday while dismissing a petition filed by an employee under Angul district administration challenging his reversion from section officer to senior revenue assistant.
Justice Biraja Prasanna Satapathy held that the petitioner was not eligible for promotion when the departmental promotion committee (DPC) recommended his elevation in July 2023, as a Vigilance proceeding initiated in 2012 was still pending. The court observed that the DPC had recommended the promotion under the mistaken assumption that no proceeding was pending against the employee.
The petitioner had challenged the the Angul collector’s January 21 order cancelling his promotion, arguing that he had been promoted on the basis of a DPC recommendation made on July 31, 2023 and had already joined the higher post.
The petitioner’s counsel argued that the promotion could not subsequently be withdrawn merely because of the pendency of a vigilance proceeding, particularly when there had been little progress in the case over the years.
The state government, on its part, submitted that the employee had been implicated in a corruption case registered at the Cuttack Vigilance police station in 2012 and had also faced a departmental proceeding arising out of the same allegations. In that proceeding, he was punished with stoppage of one increment without cumulative effect.
Examining the records, Justice Satapathy noted that while recommending the petitioner’s promotion in 2023, the DPC had not recorded the pendency of the vigilance case. “Since it is not disputed that a vigilance proceeding was pending against the petitioner at the time he was extended the benefit of promotion, the petitioner was not eligible to get the benefit of regular promotion,” Justice Satapathy held.
Finding no illegality in the Angul collector’s order cancelling the promotion, the court upheld the reversion. However, it clarified that the petitioner may seek promotion afresh if he is ultimately acquitted in the case.