Govt staff against quota in promotions
General category workers say merit should be deciding factor
DELHI: General category employees working with the Centre, state government departments and public sector undertakings (PSUs) have accused the personnel and training department of violating the Supreme Court judgment regarding reservation in promotions.
Several employee associations under the banner of Samta Andolan Samiti (SAS), an anti-reservation outfit, will gather in New Delhi on Saturday to work out a strategy to press the Centre for ensuring that merit, and not quotas, should be the decisive factor in elevating employees.
Samir Singh Chandel, working president of the SAS, said at a press conference here: “The central and state governments are acting under the pressure of the Scheduled Caste (SC)/Scheduled Tribe (ST) lobby and are practising vote bank politics to lure reserved category voters. The governments are least bothered about general category people. All this is happening in the name of social engineering.” SAS claimed the Centre wants to table a bill for reserving promotions for SCs, STs and OBCs in government jobs in the forthcoming session of Parliament. But government sources said the bill has been pending and there has not been any new decision.
The organisation has filed a complaint at Parliament Street police station against V Narayanasamy — former minister of state in the PMO during the UPA regime and the current chief minister of Puducherry — for alleged “contempt” of the SC order regarding reservation in promotion. “The repeated contempt of SC order has resulted in percentage of reserved category bureaucrats in the total strength of about two crore central and state government and PSUs employees rising from 22.5 to 34 across the country.
In some departments, the percentage has shot up to 100,” Parashar Narayan Sharma, president of the SAS, said.
In 2012, the Constitutional Amendment Bill (117th) providing quota in promotions on government posts to SCs and STs was passed in Rajya Sabha, but could not be passed in Lok Sabha as parties failed to reach a consensus.