Cuttack, July 13: Orissa High Court has directed the state government to formulate specific rules for recruitment and promotion of employees working in various posts at the fire service department.

It said the absence of any specific rule was increasing court cases. The state government had issued a letter on August 13, 2007, with instructions on how to promote a fireman to an assistant station officer.

The letter had fixed 50 per cent marks in each subject in the written test as qualifying marks with the further condition that the results of pre-promotional test board shall remain valid for a period of three years or till framing of the cadre rule by the government, whichever is earlier.

The court said: "It is unfortunate that even after 10 years from the date of issuance of the letter, the state government has not formulated recruitment/promotion rule due to which litigations are mounting."

The division bench of Justice Sanju Panda and Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad directed the state government "to take all sincere endeavour to formulate the rule within reasonable period, preferably within period of three months, so that work in the fire service department may not suffer for an indefinite period".

The court issued the order on a batch of petitions filed in connection with the promotion of firemen to the rank of assistant station officer on the basis of a pre-promotional written test conducted on September 23, 2007.

The petitioners who had failed to make it to the merit list challenged the letter in the State Administrative Tribunal and sought direction to reduce qualifying mark to 30 per cent in aggregate in the written test.

However, the tribunal had in 2014 concluded that the select list would be valid till it was exhausted, as there was no rule regarding validity of the select list.

They subsequently challenged the tribunal order in the high court.

The case records indicated that the selection process had started in 2007. Out of 543 candidates who took the test, 310 were selected.

In 2017, 135 of those candidates are yet to be promoted after filling up the existing vacancies in the department.

Taking note of it, the high court directed the state government not to grant any further promotions from the select list prepared on the basis of the selection conducted in 2007.

The high court said the select list in this situation could not be allowed to continue indefinitely. It further ruled that the tribunal's conclusion "cannot be said to be sustainable in the eyes of the law".

"We are of the considered view that the findings given by the tribunal regarding validity of the list till it finally exhausts is not proper hence the same is hereby set aside," the division bench ruled in its July 6 order, the full text of which was made available today.