Supreme Court did not give relief to the DoPT secretary in the case of contempt

The Supreme Court has refused to acquit the secretary of the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) from contempt proceedings for allegedly violating a status quo order on promotion of central government employees. Attorney General K.K. Venugopal argued that there was physical suppression of facts in the contempt petition and only temporary and ad-hoc promotions were made, as he had urged the apex court to discharge the officer against the background of these facts.

However, a bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and Aniruddha Bose refused to accept the argument and posted the matter for further hearing in the second week of August.

The apex court had on April 9 issued a contempt notice to the secretary seeking clarification on a plea claiming violation of status quo by the apex court on promotion of central government employees.

A petition was filed by Devanand Sahu through advocate Kumar Parimal against the senior officer for violation of the order dated April 15, 2019 of the apex court. In the Nagraj (2006) and Jarnail Singh (2018) cases, the apex court laid down the conditions. For example, before considering reservation in promotion, these are the collection of data on inadequacy of representation, overall impact on efficiency on administration and removal of creamy layer.

After a brief hearing in the matter, a bench of Justice Nageswara Rao and Justice Vineet Saran issued notice on the contempt petition filed by Sahu. The petition states that the apex court had directed to maintain status quo for promotion of officers, and the DoPT had made an application for permission to grant ad-hoc promotions, which was rejected on July 22, 2020. However, it continued. Promotion order in favor of 149 officers dated 11th December 2020. These officers ranged from the Central Secretariat Service’s Selection Grade (Deputy Secretary) to the Senior Selection Grade (Director) on an ad-hoc basis. The petition claimed, the promotion order was issued without reviewing the select list of Under Secretaries for the year 2003 and onwards and in reference to the Constitution Bench judgment in the case of M Nagaraj and Jarnail Singh in 2003 and onwards. The secretary selection list was reviewed.