Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Row over SI seniority list

Thiruvananthapuram: Sixty-five Sub-Inspectors of Police, promoted as officers from the constabulary, have urged the government to review its decision to promote younger officers (all recruited directly as Sub-Inspectors after 2003) overlooking their seniority.

In separate complaints to the Home Department, the promoted SIs alleged that there were serious anomalies in the provisional seniority list of Sub-Inspectors of Police (for the period 1-1-2003 to 31-12-2005) issued by the Police Headquarters on July 20, 2007.

One officer, whose case is emblematic of the complaints, said that he had been placed below the rank of 800 on the new provisional seniority list. In the list, his date of regularisation of service was “erroneously” shown as March 1, 2005.

The officer said he had been recruited as Head Constable and was promoted as SI on September 18, 2002. He said the “arbitrary change” in the date of his regularisation of service was “illegal” and “contrary” to the directions of the High Court and the Supreme Court regarding matters of State government service.

In an earlier order issued by the Police Headquarters his rank in the seniority list was above 750, he said. The order correctly mentioned his date of regularisation as June 1, 2002. The list was shown to him and he had signed on it.

On January 22, 2007, the Police Headquarters published a revised State-wide provisional seniority list of SIs (General Executive). The SI said his name was not included in the list. He said he was unable to file objection against the list as it was not circulated among Sub-Inspectors.

In a written reply to the aggrieved officers, the Police Headquarters said the original seniority list for Thiruvananthapuram Range was prepared without keeping the 1:1 ratio between promoted SIs and direct recruit SIs. It said the current seniority list was the one revised according to the method adopted by other police ranges in the State.

The PHQ said 95 Sub-Inspectors who were included in the earlier provisional seniority list had become ineligible for regularisation before 31-12-2002 and were excluded from the list. The complainants have told the government that the reasons cited by the Police Headquarter are “illegal”. They argued that they were entitled to get their seniority over the directly recruited SIs.

The officers said that the SIs recruited after March 19, 2003 have been inducted in the provisional seniority list as a block, resulting in arbitrary and illegal change of date of regularisation of officers whose service were regularised as Sub-Inspector between June 1, 2002 and March 1, 2005.

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