High Court rejects promotion of 133 police constables
MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Wednesday directed the state to recall 133 police constables who had been sent to the Maharashtra Police Academy, Nashik for training as police subinspectors and revert them to their original posts in constabulary.
The division bench of Justice AS Chandurkar and Justice Jitendra Jain passed the order while deciding a bunch of petitions arising out of a limited departmental competitive examination (LDCE) conducted in 2016. The court said their “promotion” through LDCE would amount to sending more candidates for training than the 828 seats advertised and therefore liable to be cancelled.
The 133 constables, who had cleared LDCE 2016, had been sent for training on an interim order passed by another bench of the high court on September 25, 2023. The division bench of Justice Sunil Shukre and Justice Firdosh Pooniwalla had said that the 133 constables were denied promotion even after being more meritorious than several of the candidates and were selected for promotion and sent for training. In June 2016, 133 constables, among many others, took the LDCE for 828 police sub-inspector positions. However, before recruitment concluded, on July 25, 2017, the HC invalidated the state’s policy of granting reservations to backward category candidates in promotions at all levels. The case went to the Supreme Court, which upheld the HC’S ruling. Even after instructions issued by the general administration department, the office of the DGP still included candidates from reserved categories in their list. After further litigation, the DGP corrected the error but arbitrarily selected candidates for training. The petitioners then appealed to Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal (MAT) and subsequently to the HC, arguing they were more meritorious but denied promotion. The HC, led by Justice Sunil Shukre, accepted their argument, stating candidates scoring between 245 and 249 out of 400 marks should also be eligible for police sub-inspector training. An interim order on September 25 directed the DGP to prepare a list of such candidates and send them for training within four weeks.