Delhi High Court issues notice on Arjuna awardee Akram Shah's plea seeking promotion

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has issued notice to the Centre and CRPF on a plea moved by Arjuna awardee-judoka Akram Shah seeking out-of-turn promotion to the rank of Deputy Commandant.

In his plea, Shah, who participated and won a Bronze Medal as a Head Coach in the 2014 Asian Games, stated that he is fully eligible to be promoted to the rank of Deputy Commandant under Para (iv) of the Office Memorandum of 2012 which deals out-of-turn promotion for sportsmen. At the time of winning the bronze medal, the petitioner was holding the rank of Assistant Commandant, the plea said.

"However, to the utter shock and surprise of the petitioner, from the time of winning the bronze medal making him fully eligible to be promoted to the rank of Deputy Commandant w.e.f 24/10/2014 under the Policy of 2012, the petitioner has been making representations one after the other seeking out-of-turn promotion which remains unheard of even till date," the plea read.

Hearing the submissions, in the recent order, a division bench of Justices Suresh Kumar Kait and Saurabh Banerjee issued notices to the Centre, CRPF, and others seeking replies within six weeks. The order further directed to renotify the matter on January 11 before Registrar for completion of pleadings.

Advocates Renjith B. Marar, Zulfiker Ali P.S., Augustine Peter, and Lakshmi Sree P. appeared on behalf of Akram Shah.

The plea also stated that petitioner had not the victim of the unjustness of the respondents for the first time, saying in accordance with Policy of 1998, on account of winning a silver medal on August 4 in Judo in the 17th Commonwealth Games held at Manchester (the UK), he became entitled to out-of-turn promotion to the post of Assistant Commandant, which was not granted to him well in time despite the case of the petitioner being recommended therefor.

In that case also, the petitioner sent numerous representations to the appropriate authority seeking updates on his case of out-of-turn promotion and the latter kept on dilly-dallying on the genuine issue of the petitioner, leading to the petitioner suffering massively owing to the delays on the part of the respondents in processing the same, it said.