Based on a complaint filed by a professor from an engineering college in the City, the Basavanagudi police have registered a first information report (FIR) against the Higher Education Department Principal Secretary Dr Rajneesh Goel, and Technical Education Director H U Talawar, in connection with a conflict pertaining to promotion of faculty.
The complainant, Dr Sakey Shamu, a professor of civil engineering at BMS Engineering College, has alleged that the officials had wrongfully denied him promotion and due benefits. While his current designation is that of a professor, on merit, based on his PhD from IIT (Madras) secured in 2006, his complaint pertains to his earlier period of service.
Dr Shamu has complained that he was due to be promoted as a professor in 1995, which he was denied. Were he to be promoted then, he would have been eligible for the principal’s post in 1998.
An FIR was registered on August 28, 2014, and a case registered under IPC (166,167) in this connection. Section (166) pertains to a public servant disobeying law with an intent to cause injury to any person, and Section (167) deals with a public servant framing an incorrect document with an intent to cause injury.
Speaking to Deccan Herald, a police officer said, “It is a case referred from the court and the police have acted in accordance with the court’s direction and have filed an FIR. The matter is being investigated.”
The point of conflict is the Cadre and Recruitment Rules 1987, under which Shamu is claiming the promotion, and a government order citing AICTE guidelines, according to which the Higher Education Department has denied him the promotion.
However, according to documents available with Deccan Herald, the Department of Law, has noted in 2012 that the Cadre Rules are supreme and the department could not alter it by a government order. The Law Department has directed the Higher Education department to consider the promotion. The High Court and the Supreme Court verdicts in this connection are in Dr Shamu's favour.
In his complaint, Shamu has alleged that while he had to be ‘promoted’ to the post of professor (which is different from Direct Recruitment), the Principal Secretary (in 2013) had added the words 'For Promotion' in front of the rules meant for direct recruitment and thereby had wrongfully denied him promotion.
According to his complaint, Shamu, who joined service in 1987, was wrongly denied seniority as Assistant Professor in 1992. However, the National Commission for SC/STs held that this was in violation of the Cadre Rules, and in 1997 directed the college to offer him the seniority with retrospective effect (from 1992).
His subsequent promotion, due as a professor in 1995, was also affected. Based on the court directions and the Law Department’s opinion, the professor is claiming his seniority.
