S Lalitha By

Express News Service

BENGALURU: The Karnataka State Administrative Tribunal (KAT) has declared the roster readied by the state government to promote 23 SC/ST assistant engineers working in different state government departments to the next cadre as “totally illegal and arbitrary.” It has also called for the exercise to be redone within two months from the date of its verdict.

KAT Administrative member A P Joshi pronounced the order on June 9. They were hearing an appeal filed by Sharanabasappa Chittawadgi, Assistant Engineer of Bagalkot Development Authority and four other engineers versus State of Karnataka and others in connection with a government order dated May 5, 2016.

The engineers (refers to five engineers) contention was that 23 AEs (Division-II) were promoted as Assistant Executive Engineers (AEE) in Division-II though they were figured more than 100 rankings below the meritorious engineers in terms of seniority. Division-II refers to Diploma Holders in Engineering while Division-I refers to engineering graduates.

The Tribunal order states that the final gradation list published by the government on March 25, 2013, needs to be given consideration. The order states that the premise that the engineers who were sought to be promoted were coverable in the quota reserved for SC/ST officials “is totally misconceived.”

The applicants were represented by advocate S V Narasimhan.

According to information obtained by the applicants under the RTI Act which was submitted to the Tribunal, the representation of SC officials in the AEE-II cadre was 34.96 per cent and that of ST was 8.31 per cent. Speaking to Express, B Peethambara Swamy, president of the Karnataka Engineering Service Association said that as per the state government order dated 13.4.1999 (an amendment of the 3.2.1999 order), the level of representation of ST or SC official in the higher cadres can touch only 15 per cent in the case of SC and 3 per cent in the case of ST employees. “Those falling under the reserved category were already over represented,” he said.

The state order on May 5 which put the 23 engineers on the promotion list could not be implemented immediately due to a series of objections filed by the Engineering Service Association. This ensured the matter was referred to the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms and then the Law Department.

The KAT member also drew upon the Supreme Court order on February 9, 2016 in the B K Pavithra and others vs State of Karnataka civil appeal which called for “doing away with the catch up rule and providing for consequential seniority under Sections 3 and 4 to people belonging to SCs and STs on promotion against roster points to be ultra vires Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution.”

It also called for revising the seniority list published by the government to be reviewed within three months from the day.