CAT delivers a blow, quashes promotions of 91 CBI officers

In a major blow to the central bureau of investigation (CBI), the central administrative tribunal (CAT) has cancelled promotions of the agency’s 91 officers citing serious discrepancies.

A CAT bench headed by justice VK Bali quashed promotions of deputy superintendents of police (DSP) appointed in 1999.

Hearing an appeal by seven CBI officers challenging the promotions, CAT ruled, “We will have qualm of conscience if we do not draw attention to a very unjust, unfair and inequitable situation having a demoralising effect on public services probably ensuing from certain rules framed by the government and the decisions of this court.

“Even where recruitment to a service is from more than one source and a quota is fixed for each service, more often the appointing authority, to meet its exigencies of service, exceeds the quota from the easily available source of promotees because the procedure for making recruitment from the market is long prolix and time-consuming.”

The dispute arose when CBI decided that the date of confirmation of officers, not the date of appointment, will be considered for promotion.

The appointments that were under challenge were of 1999. DSPs of 1997 and 1998 batches claimed they did not get due promotions as others.
The bench also directed CBI to issue a fresh list of departmental DSPs according to seniority with the date of appointment as the criterion. 

“Once an incumbent is appointed to a post according to rule, his seniority has to be counted from the date of appointment, not the date of confirmation,” the bench said.