CAT Puts Stay on BSNL Promotions

CHANDIGARH: The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) on Friday put a stay on the promotions of 13 respondents working as deputy general manager in BSNL on an application challenging their promotions. Passing the orders, the tribunal said the respondents working as DGM shall not be promoted till the pendency of the application. The application was filed by Naresh Thakur of Kullu Branch, Ashwani Kumar Gupta and DK Sharda of Chandigarh branch, working as AGM in the BSNL. The applicants had challenged the promotion of 13 BSNL employees to the post of DGM. 

 

The said promotions were made on May 3 this year. The matter is now slated to come up for hearing on July 12. It was stated in the application that the 13 respondents were initially inducted into service as JE. The applicants said they were recruited in the BSNL before the respondents. It was alleged that the respondents were given accelerated promotions under reserved quota. 

 

Furthermore, the respondents were also granted consequential seniority arising from the out of turn roster-based promotions. The applicants alleged that the BSNL never undertook any exercise to apply catch-up rule and restore the original seniority of the applicants. 

 

According to sources, Shri R R Mishra, CMD of Western Coalfields; Shri A K Jha, CMD of Mahanadi Coalfields; Shri Gopal Singh, CMD of Central Coalfields and Shri Shekhar Saran, chairman of the Central Mine Planning & Design Institute, have applied for the new position. The source said there could be external candidates (non-Coal India) as well. 

 

Among the internal candidates, all are non-IAS personnel and belong to the technical field except Mishra, who is from human resources. “Although PESB has been preferring candidates from the technical arena, an exception was made in case of Partha S Bhattacharya, who was from finance background”, a company official said. 

 

Another company source said that over the years, preference had been given to the candidates from the technical field but recently the government has been preferring IAS cadres.