Ranchi, Sept. 24: Road construction department secretary Nagendra Nath Sinha appeared before Jharkhand High Court in a contempt case today.

Sinha was summoned by Justice D.N. Patel for not complying with an earlier court order, which directed promotion of assistant engineers as executive engineers.

Sinha filed an affidavit stating that 59 assistant engineers had been promoted to the post of executive engineers. He added that only those candidates whose names were not cleared by the vigilance bureau were not promoted.

He added that a notification declaring the promotion of 37 general candidates and 22 ST candidates was issued in November 2009.

The matter had come up in a contempt case filed by one Nand Kumar Ram, an assistant engineer in the road construction department, who said eligible candidates were given superior postings only on ad hoc basis.

The case will again come up for hearing on Tuesday.