Resume long-stalled promotions in Central Secretariat Service immediately: Officers' body to DoPT

New Delhi, Jan 30 (PTI) Citing a recent Supreme Court judgment, an organisation of government officers urged the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) on Sunday to immediately resume the long-stalled promotions in the Central Secretariat Service (CSS).

In a letter to DoPT Secretary P K Tripathi, the organisation urged him to direct the wing concerned to update its records so that the promotion orders of the CSS officers are issued without further delay as many of them are retiring every month without getting their due career benefits.

The letter assumes significance as there are over 1,800 vacant posts at the levels of section officer, undersecretary, deputy secretary, director and joint secretary against their sanctioned strength of 6,210, a member of the CSS Forum -- an association of all CSS officers -- said.

In addition to the over 1,800 existing vacancies, there are more than 2,700 officials working on ad-hoc promotions, he said.

"The Central Secretariat Service is one of the earliest organised services of the government of India. Despite this, CSS officers, who are considered to be the backbone of the government of India's functioning, are distressed over their long-delayed promotions by their cadre-controlling authority, DoPT, apparently due to a pending case in the Supreme Court," the officer said.

In his letter to the DoPT secretary, CSS Forum general secretary Manmohan Verma said the apex court on Friday clarified all the points on which the matter was under contention.

"Subsequent to this judgment, there remains no rationale to hold the promotions," he said.

So far as the Central Secretariat Service is concerned, the data for all the cadres within the CSS is already available with the CS-I division and thus, there is no hindrance in complying with the Supreme Court judgment, Verma said.

"Therefore, the CSS Forum requests you to direct the CS division to make all the data up to date so that the promotion orders of the CSS officers may be issued without further delay as many CSS officers are superannuating every month without promotions," he said in the letter.

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to "lay down any yardstick" for granting reservation in promotion to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes in government jobs, saying the determination of their inadequate representation is the discretion of the State.

The forum also wrote to Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh recently, seeking the promotions and on other matters related to the CSS.

Verma said the DoPT had, in June 2018, issued instructions to all the departments and ministries to carry out promotions, subject to the outcome of the apex court judgment in the matter of reservation in promotions.

Accordingly, all departments and ministries have been continuously issuing regular promotion orders of all central government employees, but only the CS division under the DoPT has not issued any such order for regular promotions in the CSS for more than six years on the pretext of pending court cases, he added.

For the last eight months, Verma said, the DoPT has even stopped giving ad-hoc promotions.

"It is ironical that in different departments and ministries, CSS officers are issuing regular promotion orders of other cadre officers, however, they are being denied even ad-hoc promotion, even after more than 1,800 vacancies in different grades. This has severely impacted the functioning of the central secretariat as the CSS officers are highly frustrated and feeling much de-motivated," he said. PTI AKV RC