BHUBANESWAR: The belated move to amend the Odisha Civil Services (Criteria for Promotion) Rules, 1992 is received with trepidation by general category employees of the State government. The anxiety of general category candidates serving in the State government stemmed from the cabinet note in the matter of the promotion of scheduled categories candidates who got appointments in the reserved category but claimed promotion against an unreserved vacancy.
Giving approval to the General Administration department proposal for amendment of Odisha Civil Services (Criteria for Promotion) Rules, the State Cabinet said, “Since there are no provisions in the rules that Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe candidates appointed on their own merit either by direct recruitment or by promotion and placed above the unreserved candidates in the merit (sic) shall be considered and adjusted against the unreserved vacancies and such candidates are not be counted within the percentage earmarked for reservation of their category.”
The settled principles of law as pronounced by Supreme Court in various cases is that reserve candidates selected on merit without availing any relaxation meant for reservation are considered against unreserved posts in case of both initial appointment and promotion.“Our objection to the Cabinet note is three-fold. As the criteria of promotion are not well defined, it will create problems as many ST and SC candidates selected in reserved categories continue to claim promotion in unreserved posts,” said Dambarudhar Ghana, a member of the Odisha Secretariat Service Association.
However, the State government is going to amend the promotion criteria rules after 27 years of the landmark Supreme Court judgement in 1995 in the RK Sabharwal vs the State of Punjab. The SC order pronounced the post-based promotion to different categories in their respective zones of consideration.
The June 30, 2022 clarification of the ST and SC Development department on the participation of reserved category candidates against unreserved vacancies is a case in point. “SC/ST candidates appointed on their own merit (by direct recruitment or promotion) and adjusted against unreserved points will retain their status of SC/ST and be eligible to get the benefit of reservation in future/further promotions,” the order said.
The scheduled categories candidates selected on merit must specify their option at the time of recruitment or promotion whether to avail reservation or to continue in the unreserved category. The government should take different service associations into confidence before the amendment of the rules regulating promotion, Ghana said.