Government takes a major step to free up vacancies for promotions

Jammu: The Government today issued circular instructions aimed at proper implementation of reservation rules and bringing clarity in the procedures being followed by the departments/Departmental Promotion Committees while making promotions. These instructions have been issued to amplify the advisory earlier issued by the Government in furtherance of the interim directions passed in SLPs viz. Mohammad Haneef Lone, Vinod Kumar Bhagat and Nasib Singh cases, by the Supreme Court.

Noticing that the reservation rules and the instructions issued on the subject were resulting in utilization of two reservation roster points for a single candidate and as such adversely affecting the career prospects of the employees and efficient cadre management, the Government has now clarified the entire procedure to be followed by the Appointing Authorities while making promotions. The issuance of these instructions was necessitated to bring about uniformity in application of the rules in all departments of the Government and also to address the administrative difficulties which arose on account of inconsistent application of the rules.

Preparation of promotion proposals in accordance with these instructions would safeguard the interests of the employees, while protecting the interests of the candidates belonging to the reserved categories as no vacancy shall remain un-utilized except where the same is warranted under rules or is necessary to comply with the court orders. On the governance front, the practice of assigning additional charges necessitated due to non-utilization of vacancies/rosters leading to adhocism having bearing on the efficient delivery of public services would be largely addressed. Apart from this, the avoidable litigations which were a direct off-shoot of the improper application of the reservation rules would be minimized and the stated objective of the Government to minimize adhocism in different departments and timely referral of direct recruitment vacancies would be achieved.