Promotion cant be withheld on contemplation of disciplinary action: Karnataka HC
BENGALURU: Noting that promotioncannot be withheld on mere contemplation of disciplinary action yet to crystalise into a charge sheet against an employee as on the date of assessment for promotion, the Karnataka High Court directed the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited (KPTCL) to promote Assistant Accounts Officer Maruthi Rao to the post of Accounts Officer with effect from April 2018 and give all consequential benefits. A charge sheet surfacing years after the Departmental Promotion Committee convened cannot retrospectively deprive the petitioner of a promotion that he was rightfully due and ought to have been granted upon the fair assessment of his representation. The corporation appears to have proceeded in blissful disregard of settled doctrine pertaining to commencement and pendency of disciplinary proceedings, thereby acting in blatant contravention of the governing principles of Service Jurisprudence, said Justice M Nagaprasanna, allowing the petition filed by Maruthi Rao from Dharwad. The petitioner sought directions to the KPTCL to give him a promotion to the post of Accounts Officer with effect from April 16, 2018. Owing to certain omissions and commissions, pending initiation of disciplinary proceedings, the petitioner was placed under suspension, which was revoked after three months. His juniors were accorded promotions. Long thereafter, on October 29, 2021, a charge sheet was issued against several others alleging offences of certain misconduct. The said charge sheet is pending consideration. The petitioner then submits a representation on July 12, 2024, claiming promotion on the score that, as on the date on which the petitioner and others were assessed for promotion, his case could not have been ignored, as there was no charge sheet on the said date. The court noted that the charge sheet was issued only on October 29, 2021, nearly four years subsequent to a meeting of the Departmental Promotion Committee, which had, on April 16, 2018, accorded promotion to the juniors of the petitioner. The petitioner on the said date, admittedly, did not suffer any disqualification and yet his case was excluded for promotion, the court added.
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