HC relief for TSP officers

January 04, 2017 12:36 am | Updated 12:36 am IST - MADURAI:

The Madras High Court has ruled that Tamil Nadu Special Police (TSP) personnel who got accelerated promotion as Inspectors and Assistant Commandants before November 2007 on account of having served in Special Line such as armoury division cannot be reverted on the basis of a statutory rule introduced that year to grant promotions on the basis of date of entry into police service and not the date of last promotion.

A Division Bench of Justices A. Selvam and P. Kalaiyarasan allowed a writ appeal preferred by the Home Secretary as well as another appeal preferred by the promoted police officers and set aside an order passed by a single judge of the High Court on January 21 directing the State to follow the 2007 rule even for promotions made prior to it.

The judgement was reserved in the principal seat of the High Court in Chennai and delivered at its Bench here.

Writing the judgement for the Bench, Mr. Justice Kalaiyarasan pointed out that personnel in TSP were broadly categorised into two major groups -- General Line and Special Line. While General Line formed the major portion of the force, the Special Line consisted of sub divisions such as Motor Transport group, Signal Group, Armoury group, band group and miscellaneous posts such as carpenters, cobblers, tailors and so on.

Though a constable in both the General Line as well as Special Line gets elevated to the rank of Inspector and even further through the posts of Naik, Havildar and Sub Inspector; the avenue for promotion in the Armoury group alone was only till Sub Inspector. In such circumstances, some of the General Line personnel filed a writ petition in 2013 and claimed that those in Armoury group get promoted as SIs quickly and then shift to General Line to get promoted further.

Contending that such accelerated promotions were possible only because of taking into account the date of last promotion and not the date of joining into service, the writ petitioners said the State Government had even amended the Tamil Nadu Special Police Subordinate Service Rules, on the recommendation of Director General of Police, and inserted Rule 24(f) on November 23, 2007 in order to curb the anomalies in promoting the police personnel.

Though the single judge ruled in favour of the writ petitioners, the Division Bench held that he was not correct in allowing their petitions since the personnel who got accelerated promotions had shifted from Special Line to General Line in 2006 itself.

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