Supreme Court closes contempt case against Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla

The Supreme Court on Tuesday closed a contempt case against Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla initiated for alleged violation of the top court's order of April 15, 2019 on maintaining status quo as to promotion of the officers.

"We see no reason to entertain this contempt petition. This, however, should not be taken as reflection upon merits of the matter which would be decided in appeals," a bench of Chief Justice U U Lalit and Justice S Ravindra Bhat said, adding there are ramifications when contempt is kept pending.

The court passed its order after hearing Attorney General K K Venugopal and advocate Kumar Parimal for applicant Debanand Sahoo.

Earlier, responding to contempt notice, Bhalla had said the Centre has carried out ad hoc promotions of its staff purely on the basis of their seniority without looking at the their status of Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe, in order to meet exigencies of the government and in accordance with an opinion from the Attorney General for India.

Bhalla was then holding an additional charge of Secretary, Department of Personnel and Training during October 1, 2020 to January 24, 2021.

On Tuesday, the court put the matter related to states' decision to grant reservation in promotion to SC/ST employees for hearing after two week.

The court took into consideration the fact that the Karnataka's SC/ST Engineers Association has filed review petition against January 28 judgement in Jarnail Singh case.