J&K govt issues draft redrawn seniority list of KAS officers

New Delhi (IANS) : The Jammu and Kashmir government has issued a draft redrawn seniority list of the officers of the Kashmir Administrative Service (KAS), appointed between January 1, 2004 and December 1, 2008, following the recommendations of a committee to resolve the vexed issue.

This was issued on Wednesday by the General Administration Department.

A committee set up by the Jammu and Kashmir administration to draft the redrawn seniority list of the KAS officers has recommended that the inductions made with effect from January 1, 2004 to December 1, 2008 are necessarily to be governed by the Jammu and Kashmir Administrative Service Rules, 1979.

The committee submitted its report on May 16, 2020 and it was accepted by the competent authority with the further directions that the committee shall redraw the seniority of the members of the service concerned, based on the principles laid down by the committee. This has been issued by the order of the Lt Governor.

A draft redrawn seniority list of the officers appointed to the Time Scale of the Jammu and Kashmir Administrative Service between January 1, 2004 and December 1, 2008, as it stood on January 1, 2010, has been notified for information of all the officers concerned. The said seniority list shall be without prejudice to the cases of officer/officers pending in any court of law for one or the other reasons and without prejudice to any writ petition/petitions pending before any competent court.

Any officer aggrieved with the position assigned to him/her may represent to the government in the General Administration Department, within a period of 10 days from the date of issuance of this order.

The officers who are appointed to the Time Scale from feeding services and Junior KAS direct recruits are "promotion cases", while the officers who are selected to the Time Scale of KAS from the departments other than the feeding services are "direct recruitment cases".

The officers who have been appointed to the Time Scale of KAS, by way of promotion (from Junior KAS and feeding services) should be given the year of induction against the vacancies of which these officers were appointed into the Time Scale of KAS or year of their placement against such higher post (when they were placed in officiating

capacity against Time Scale post of KAS), whichever is later, subject to the condition that the officers held eligibility for getting such induction at that time.

The officers inducted to KAS, during the course of year though on different dates, should be considered for grant of notional induction/seniority from January 1 of the year.

The Establishment-cum-Selection Committee has adhered to the rules while framing select list as far as grading of the officers is concerned and in case of similar grading of the officers, the length of the service will be the criteria for reckoning the seniority of the officer and in case the date of appointment to the Time Scale of feeding service is same, the persons higher in age would be given seniority over the younger ones.

The appointment to the Jammu and Kashmir Administrative Service, by way of selection of the officers belonging to departments other than the feeding services, may be considered a direct recruitment process for which appointment cannot be considered retrospectively.

The Committee opined that the vacancies should be calculated and allocated to different groups strictly as per Rule 5 of Jammu and Kashmir Administrative Service Rules, 1979. However, the government has taken conscious decisions, regarding determination of vacancies from time to time, to manage the cadre depending upon the circumstances existing at the relevant point of time.

A tentative seniority list of 239 officers (including two ad hoc inductees), appointed to the Time Scale of the KAS was notified in 2010.

As many as 110 representations were received against the said seniority list in which substantial issues were raised,after which it went through committee and litigation in the court.