STATUS W P NO. 2872 IN HON'BLE BOMBAY HIGH COURT

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led to assigning illegitimate seniority to Economic Services officers, who have joined back much later than many of the superseded RDBS officers which in turn has adversely and illegitimately affected the career prospects of the RDBS officers (As already pointed out in petition the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.