WP No. 2872
The hearing of
the captioned case was attended by Sri Giridhar Thakur, President,
NBOA, Mumbai on 09.04.2015 in the Mumbai High Court.
Our advocate, Shri Sandip Marne made a
'mention' and requested for two weeks
time to file a supplementary affidavit with
regard to latest developments in the case
based on the written submission provided to him by AINBOA. Hon'ble court accepted his plea and has
granted the time accordingly and next
hearing falls on 23 April 2015. We will keep the
membership apprised accordingly
Dr D S Chauhan
GS
WP No. 2872
Status
of facts vis-à-vis challenged Promotion Policy and the Present Policy
Earlier
policy provision as challenged by AINBOA :
1. Merger of Services :
No change
in the present policy the seniority list remains as merged and finalised on
31/12/2012. The points of challenge as detailed below remain unresolved
a) That the merger of services has been done
without amending the Rule 8 (i) or the Appendix I of the Staff Rules remains as
it is on this date too. The contention
of the bank that Staff Rules are not part of regulations and merely
administrative piece of paper is entirely incorrect as the fact is that NABARD
Staff Rules, 1982 are in fact subordinate legislation drawn under section 60 of
NABARD Act, 1981 and hence its amendments by BoDs in so far that it violates
Section 60 (4) of the NABARD Act should
be set aside.
b) That the merger of the services specially
that of Economic Services and RDBS was done on malice and malafide by the
respondents No.4 & 5 (Earlier Chairman & CGM-HRMD) remains unresolved.
( As pointed out in the Petition both Respondent Nos 4 and 5 belonging to
economic service and have vested interest in the decision to merge economic
service with RDBS which is clearly reflected in the memorandum submitted to
board of directors whereat it has been indicated that merged seniority list
will provide ‘better opportunities ‘ for career progression to economic
services officers…while the same has not been indicated in the memorandum
justifying merger of technical services with RDBS.)
c) The merger has led to assigning
illegitimate seniority to Economic Services officers, who have joined back much
later than many of the superseded RDBS officers which in turn has adversely and
illegitimately affected the career prospects of the RDBS officers (As already
pointed out in petition the Officers in RDBS who were at Sr. Nos. 1 to 4 in the
Pre-merger seniority list have been pushed down to Sr. Nos. 9 to 12 in the
Post-merger seniority list in Grade E. Similar is the position in Grade C &
D also. Such merger has also resulted in officer promoted in services of the
Bank in Grade B in RDBS in 1994 being superseded by officers of Economic
services who joined Grade B in the year 1996. This is on account of faster
promotion earned by officers of Economic services in Grade C and subsequently
to grade D. Incidentally all the Economic services officers who have been
assigned new seniority on account of merger of services are comparatively
younger in age to the RDBS officers who have been superseded by them and thus
the Economic services officers have been unduly assigned a new seniority with a
malice and malafide intent so as to choke the future career prospects of the
RDBS officers...).
d) Further,
the contention of the bank that no officer has represented on the merger
of the seniority list is totally wrong as more than 100 representations have
been submitted (including by petitioners) and bank has not replied to them till
this date.
2. Downsizing and merger of 5 grades to 3
grades STANDS RESOLVED AS BANK HAS EFFECTED PROMOTIONS TO ALL 5 GRADES OF
OFFICERS.
3. Residual Services STANDS RESOLVED AS BANK
HAS REMOVED THE CLAUSE FROM THE NEW PROMOTION POLICY.
4. Retrospective Effects in Cut-Offs etc. STANDS RESOLVED.
5. Spells of Leaves ; STANDS RESOLVED
6. Cooling period : STANDS RESOLVED
7. Multiple Cut-offs : Partially Resolved as
though no eligible officer has been denied an opportunity for being considered
for promotion but the multiple weightages are still assigned to PAR, Written
Test (wherever applicable) and Interviews, with minimum qualifying marks for
each stage, incidentally no weightage has been assigned towards the seniority
index of the officer.
8. Direct Recruitment to Grade B (lateral
Entry) : Unresolved as bank continues to recruit grade B officers in addition
to recruitment of grade A officers, though the quantum and pace of such lateral
recruitment has been greatly reduced by the bank.
9. Promotion Policy for Other Services :
STANDS RESOLVED as the bank has come up with the Promotion Policy for the Other
Services. However the Association has expressed its reservation on certain
clauses of the policy and has requested the bank to initiate a discussion to
resolve the issues.
PS :
THOUGH THE BANK HAS INITIALLY INCLUDED THE ASSOCAITION REPRESENTATIVE IN THE
COMMITTEE TO GIVE SUGGESTION ON THE FORMULATION OF THE NEW PROMOTION POLICY,
SUBSEQUENTLY, AFTER ITS FIRST MEETING ONLY, THE SUGESSTIONS WERE NOT TAKEN/CALLED
FOR FROM THE ASSOCIATION. INSTEAD THE BANK, BYE PASSED ITS OWN RECOGNISED
REPRESENTATIVE BODY AND INSTEAD PREFFERED TO HAVE FEEDBACK FROM THE OFFICERS
DIRECTLY. NOT WITHSTANDING THE FACT THAT ONLY 50/60 OFFICERS OUT OF 2600
OFFICERS RESPONDED TO THE BANK’S CALL, THE AINBOA HAS AGAIN GIVEN ITS FEEDBACK,
SPECIALLY ON THE ISSUE OF INCREASED CALLING RATIO WHICH WILL AND HAS RESULTED
INTO LARGE SCALE SUPERCESSION AND FRUSTRATION AND DILUTING OF SENIORITY INDEX
OF THE OFFICERS AND ALSO ABOUT THE ‘TRIGGER POINT’ CLAUSE WHICH IS NOT
UNIFORMALY APPLIED TO ALL THE OFFICERS AND MORE IMPORTANTLY IT WOULD NOT BE
APPLICABLE FOR THE BENEFIT OF OFFICERS IN NEXT 5 TO 7 YEARS.
Furthermore, what about
those officers who have since retired and/or who have lost out on account of
the policy which is sub-judice but bank
still implemented it during the intervening period and also the fact that
inspite of Hon'ble courts order that the bank SHOULD NEGOTIATE WITH
ASSOCIATION, to sort out the issue, however bank chose to just have suggestions
from Association and went ahead without any detailed discussions/negotiations
with the association. The present policy too, which is approved by the board,
like the challenged policy, has been formulated without amending the NABARD
Staff Rules, 1982 and thus attracts same disqualification as enlisted above in
respect of the challenged policy.
Thanks for keeping us updated on the court case.
ReplyDeleteRegards
Geeta Kale
UIN 5389
Manager
Lucknow RO
geeta.kale@nabard.org