HC lifts moratorium on promotions in NMC

LOKMAT NEWS NETWORK

Nashik, Sep 30

The High Court (HC) has lifted the moratorium it had placed on the meetings of the promotion committee of Nashik Municipal Corporation. Barring the post of the NMC official who had petitioned the High Court, the Municipal Corporation is now free to take decisions about other promotions. It is believed that this has now cleared the way for the promotion of acting Superintending Engineer Uday Dharmadhikari, who is set to retire on Saturday, September 30.

There is an ongoing controversy in the Municipal Corporation about local officers versus officers on deputation. Staff unions had taken a stand that eligible local officials should be promoted instead of superseding them with officers from other government services on deputation.

Taking cognisance of this, Commissioner Dr Ashok Karanjkar had then called for a meeting of the promotion committee. But meanwhile, an engineer in the Nashik Municipal Corporation (NMC) Ravindra Patil had appealed to the High Court that injustice had been done to him in the promotion process. Petitioner Ravindra Patil had complained in his appeal that in the year 2017, ignoring his seniority, NMC had superseded him and promoted Sandip Jadhav out of turn first as Deputy Engineer and thereafter as Executive Engineer.

Hearing this petition, the High Court (HC) had suspended the meetings of NMC's promotion committee for a period of four weeks and had declared that it would conduct a hearing in this regard after three weeks. Therefore, barring this disputed post, the High Court has given the go ahead for other promotions and NMC has already received the orders in this regard.

The hopes of Uday Dharmadhikari, who is the acting Superintending Engineer at the moment, to retire as Superintending Engineer after working for so many years in the Municipal Corporation, have been boosted by this order. He is set to retire on September 30, and he is likely to be promoted to Superintending Engineer just before he retires. After him, Senior Executive Engineer Dhanait is likely to be appointed to this post.