SC refuses to discharge DoPT Secy from contempt case for flouting orders on promotion

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday refused to discharge the Secretary, Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), from the contempt proceedings for allegedly breaching its status quo order on promotion of Central government employees.

A plea has been filed by Debananda Sahoo, through advocate Kumar Parimal, against top officers of the Union government for violation of the top court's order of April 15, 2019. In Nagraj (2006) and Jarnail Singh (2018), the apex court laid down conditionalities like collection of data on inadequacy of representation, overall effect on efficiency on administration and removing creamy layers, before considering reservation in promotion, it said.

"The promotion order was issued without reviewing select list of Under Secretaries for the year 2003 and onwards and consequential review of Deputy Secretary select list of 2003 and onwards in terms of Constitution bench judgements in M. Nagaraj and Jarnail Singh," the plea claimed.

Subsequently, on April 9, the top court had issued contempt notice to the Secretary, seeking explanation on a plea claiming breach of status quo order of the top court on promotion of Central government employees.

Attorney General K.K. Venugopal, representing the Centre, contended that there was material suppression of facts in the contempt petition and only "temporary and ad hoc promotions" have been made as he urged the top court to discharge the official against the backdrop of these facts.

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