A police inspector attached to the Economic Offences Wing-I in Tiruchi has moved the Madras High Court Bench here claiming that he had lost a chance of getting promoted because of an “unjust” government order (G.O.).
Justice K.N. Basha on Monday ordered notice to the Home Secretary as well as the Director General of Police. He posted the matter along with a similar writ petition filed by another inspector V. Ponramu of Special Branch-CID, Madurai.
The present petitioner, A. Swaminathan, stated that he was recruited as a sub-inspector on September 27, 1987, and promoted Inspector on June 1, 1998.
“I have completed 22 years of clean service,” he claimed.
Promotion list prepared by DGP
The DGP recently prepared a list of 120 police inspectors fit for promotion to the post of Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) for the year 2008-09 and forwarded it to the State Government for approval.
There were only 93 vacancies and hence the Government passed a G.O. on June 29, this year and ordered to fill the vacancies on the basis of seniority. The petitioner’s name did not figure in the G.O. as he was placed 95th in the list.
The petitioner said that, on scrutiny, he found that the G.O. contained the names of at least six persons who had been already promoted as DSPs for being part of teams that gunned down brigand Veerappan and fundamentalist Imam Ali.
He said that he would have graduated to the 89th place and automatically become eligible for promotion if the names of the six officers who were already given the benefit of accelerated promotion had been removed from the G.O.
The inspector sought to quash the order in so far as it related to non-inclusion of his name and for a consequent direction to the Home Secretary to promote him to the post of DSP.
Other petitioner
In his writ petition filed on August 4, Mr. Ponramu claimed he was in the 98th place in the list prepared by the DGP and that he would have graduated to the 92nd place if the names of the six officers who were already promoted were excluded.
