Madhya Pradesh govt new promotion policy for employees remains on hold

BHOPAL/JABALPUR: The implementation of the new promotion policy of the state govt for its employees will continue to be on hold for now. The state govt, in a reply presented before a division bench of the MP High Court headed by the Chief Justice on petitions challenging its new promotion policy, contended that the undertaking given by the Advocate General on behalf of the state govt in the court, assuring that the new reservation policy would not be implemented before a go-ahead by the court, is affecting employees of both the general category and the reserved classes.The court asked to provide a copy of the state govt's reply to all the parties involved in the litigation before deferring the hearing of the case to September 16. In the previous hearing of the case in August, the state govt presented a chart in the court regarding the representation of different sections of society (SC/ST/OBCs/general) among its employees in different cadres and how many of the employees from reserved classes come under the creamy layer.

The court asked the state govt to present information on what basis (census, caste survey, or any other source) information regarding the representation of different sections of society among the state govt employees has been derived and presented before the court.Following the initial hearing of the case on July 7, petitioners in the case, Swati Tiwari from Bhopal and others, argued that the Supreme Court in its judgement in the M Natarajan and Genrail Singh case said that reservation in promotion should only be given when the reserved categories don't have enough representation in the cadre to which the promotion is being made.

Besides, reservation in promotion should not lead to any administrative problem, and creamy layer candidates from SCs/STs should not be given the benefit of reservation in promotion. The state govt doesn't have data on the representation of candidates from reserved classes in different cadres of the state govt jobs.

The state govt is trying to maintain reservation in promotions in the garb of new rules.The Advocate General then gave an undertaking in the court on behalf of the state govt that promotion to state govt staff won't be given under the new rules formed recently by the state govt to give promotion to its employees, which have been on hold since 2016.