CBEC Promotion to the Cadre of Assistant Commissioners - Ball Back in Board's Court - Supreme Court wants new exercise to be undertaken
IN the much-stagnated lower executive cadres of Inspectors and Superintendents of Central Excise, there are lots of anomalies and imbalances. Every day we get mails from frustrated officers who have not got a second promotion in 35 years of service. A 1992 Inspector is still an Inspector - a 1992 Superintendent is still a Superintendent. Central Excise officers complain that appraisers junior to them by 25 years have become their bosses. There are cases pending at all possible levels of litigation from Tribunal to Supreme Court. The bone of contention is the ratio among the three feeder cadres - Superintends of Central Excise, Superintendents of Customs and appraisers of Customs. The ratio was 6:2:1 and this was not appreciated by all the feeder cadres. Twelve years ago, the Supreme Court in All India Federation of Central Excise vs. Union of India had held that the Supreme Court was not the forum to change the formula and any one aggrieved with the quota should convince the Government about the need to change the rules.
Nothing much has happened since except litigation and more litigation and promotions are being made on purely ad-hoc basis, for a period of six months or until further orders, whichever is earlier. This is continuing for decades! And there seems to be no solution within the foreseeable future, as officers are running from Court to Board.
Now the Supreme Court has directed that the Government should try to complete the process of amending the Recruitment Rules including altering the existing ratio to secure just and fair representation of all the 3 feeder categories, based on representations from the feeder cadres.
Certainly, what they could not do for the last two decades or more cannot be done in the next five months. The only certainty is uncertainty. Even adhoc promotions are not being given regularly. The last time promotions were given was in October 2010 - even now, they have more than a hundred vacancies, but no promotion - ad hoc or otherwise.
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