The decks have been cleared for promotion of hundreds of teachers in the constituent colleges and universities of Bihar with the Raj Bhawan giving its nod to the statute in this regard, people familiar with the matter said.
The promotions in the colleges and universities had been withheld following an executive order by the department of education in July 2021, which was later suspended. However, despite suspension of order, promotions remained stuck due to officials’ wrangles, leading to growing resentment among teachers.
The state cabinet had cleared the statute and sent it to the Raj Bhawan in January.
A fresh notification to this effect has been issued, making it operative with immediate effect from February 15, 2023.
The education department had earlier sought opinion from the Advocate General as well as the state higher education council and both had advised that denial of promotion to teachers was not justified.
Though some universities had already granted promotion in the rank of associate professors and professors during 2018-21 on the basis of the Career Advancement Scheme (CAS), the government order had stopped further promotions and created a piquant situation as to how to deny a section of the benefits which other section has already availed.
The uncertainty led to more pendency of promotions despite March 2020 Patna high court order that the universities cannot keep cases of promotions pending for more than six months. The University Grants Commission (UGC) had also issued guidelines for early resolution of promotion cases and filling up of large-scale vacancies.
Since July 2021, after all due promotions to hundreds of university teachers had been stopped, the Raj Bhawan set up a three-member committee comprising vice chancellors. On the recommendation of the committee, the promotion statute got the Chancellor’s consent a year later in July 2022. After that the government decided to take the matter to the Cabinet and resent it to the Raj Bhawan for ratification.
It took another six months to get the Cabinet assent and later another one month for Raj Bhawan’s nod. Additional chief secretary (education) Dipak Kumar Singh said the department would now write to all the universities to initiate processes for promotion under CAS and clear backlog.
