Seniority Based Promotion Is Solution to Quota Issue

Congress Party led UPA government under the pressure of Mayawati led Bahujan Samaj party has in their mutual interest agreed to amend constitution to permit reservation in promotion to SC ST and other eligible castes. To serve their malicious interest, clever leaders of ruling party are ready to even overrule the recent adverse judgments given by High court and Supreme Court. Though party claim to respect the spirit of the Constitution and that of Apex court, they may in practice do not hesitate in going against the basic structure of the Constitution and important ruling of Apex court as they did in famous Shah Bano Case.

Clever politician of ruling UPA by their insistence to change laws of the land to gain the vote of Dalit community has not only divided anti - congress political parties but has also divided various trade unions, individuals of castes and finally the society. This has resulted in strike call by one section of employees and other sections of employees who are protagonists of quota in promotion have decided to forceful functioning of offices. Willingly or unwillingly, such prejudiced amendment in Constitution has to result in chaos and conflicts between two groups and give rise to breaking of hearts, breaking of unity and breaking of friendship. It will not be an exaggeration to say that these corrupt politicians will sacrifice the interest of the country for their self interest.

I would like to mention here that root cause of resentment, frustration and annoyance among employees of SC, ST and dalit caste is that promotion process has many loopholes which gives ample power to competent authorities to permit a junior and incompetent employee and reject a meritorious and senior staff. Culture of arbitrary and whimsical process has only resulted in demand for quota in promotion processes. There are many instances when incompetent and corrupt staffs are promoted only because they have good relation with top officials or ministers, or when they spend handsome amount in giving bribe to top officials to get promotion in lieu thereof. On the contrary there are numerous examples of employees getting rejected in promotion processes always because they do not have any Godfather in Interview boards. In this dirty process of promotion, officers and babus irrespective of their caste and community are facing humiliation in promotion processes and posting.

 I have experienced how corrupt officers are getting frequent promotion and choice posting whereas good and meritorious officers are posted at critical places, rejected in promotion processes and finally served charge sheet and made scapegoat for crime committed by corrupt officer .Senior executives exert all efforts to get the corrupt officer exonerated from punishment and they search some weak guy for making scapegoat. Birds of same feather usually are sitting at top post of most of organization and government offices barring a few exceptions. Flatters and sycophants are more often than not given preference in all types of promotion and posting .

This dirty culture is prevailing in almost all offices and all government departments and undoubtedly it is fundamentally responsible for current anger of not only people of dalit caste but of upper caste too.

As such if government gets success in permitting reservation for dalit in promotions, they may add fuel to already existing fire. For a short period members of dalit community may feel victorious, but in long run such unhealthy rules will create social imbalance and disturb badly the harmonic relation among members of various caste and communities. Not only this performance level of meritorious and hard core workers will get erosion in long run and damage the work culture in all offices.

I have however one suggestion to place before the government and before Members of Parliament belonging to all parties including learned clever leaders of Congress Party, BSP , BJP , SP and other parties .Every department may be permitted to recruit staff strictly as per prevalent policy of reservation and thereafter employees should be given promotion to higher scale or higher position strictly as per seniority in a well defined framework of time.

It is true that some hard core worker will get demotivated when a non performer will get promoted. But such type of feeling will be diluted and reduced to zero once they are made to understand that every employee irrespective of their caste has right to be promoted without any discrimination and to avoid the whimsical rejection of good workers by members of Interview panel constituted to promote staff from one cadre to other.

Both ways of promotions, on by seniority and another merit based promotion, has its own merit and demerit. But after taking into accounts all pros and cons of the both methods of promotions , it is desirable to adopt strictly seniority based promotion to avoid all disputes and to avoid all demand of quota in promotion process. Government may further formulate a policy to provide incentive to those who perform better than average workers and formulate another policy to punish those who perform worse than average performers. In this way GOI may reduce number of cases pending in various courts and avoid showing disrespect to ruling of High Court and Supreme Court. It is necessary to point out here that thousands of cases are pending in High court and Supreme court filed by aggrieved officer against whimsical decision of management.

I therefore make an appeal to all right thinking people to ponder over the issue of quota in promotion, need of meritorious and hard core workers and welfare of dalit and arrive at such a solution which is acceptable to major part of working class, political class and which is also in the interest of the nation and the society as a whole. I have no doubt that unbiased and unprejudiced debate and discussion on this issue by politicians and social workers who are above party politics and above self interest, will result in accepting seniority based promotion keeping intact the existing quota in recruitment.