Madurai: High Court dismisses constable's plea

Madurai: Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has dismissed the plea of a Grade I constable challenging a government order reverting him to the grade after promoting him as head constable complying with a 2009 directive of the court.

G Vijayakumar was given an accelerated promotion as Grade I constable as he was a member of the Special Task Force team which killed dreaded forest brigand Veerappan in 2004.

Based on the accelerated promotion, Vijayakumar was later promoted as head constable. However he was reverted as a grade I constable following the order of the high court.

Through the order, the court held that the seniority between the accelerated promottees and the general promottees in the promoted category shall continue to be governed by their panel position.

"At any stage the accelerated promotion will not give the individual accelerated consequential seniority, since the accelerated promotion is only for one stage", the court had said.

Soon after this order was passed, Vijayakumar received an order reverting him to Grade I position. He moved the court challenging the order.

Justice D Hariparanthaman dismissed the plea saying there was nothing wrong in the impugned order, which was passed based on the directions of the high court.