High Court gives BSNL three months to resolve issues with ITS officers

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited?s (BSNL) employee-related woes continue.

Prior to this, BSNL had planned to hire Indian Telecom Service officers who had two years of service left. The operator planned to hire these officers in senior management positions. The operator?s new recruitment rules was expected to exclude most of the 44-odd Indian Telecom Service officers of the rank of chief general manager (CGM) from being considered for re-absorption, as they fell in the over-58 age group.

The retirement age at BSNL is 60. BSNL also planned to consider non-ITS industry professionals with a finance and civil or electrical engineering background for these slots if suitable candidates are not available in the existing ITS pool.

However, the Indian Telecom Service executives who had transferred to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) from BSNL did not want to consider moving back to the incumbent.

So, DoT considered placing them in a surplus staffers cell in the Department of Human Resources. Thereafter, the Delhi High Court has asked these executives to take a call within two weeks on whether they want to shift back to BSNL or remain government employees. This will impact 1,700 officers, of which about 90 have opted to be absorbed in BSNL. Around 1,200 are working in BSNL on deputation, while 500 officers have been placed in the surplus cell.

The Court had also specified that those officials opting to stay in the government ought to be re-employed. Then, these officers said that they do not wish to rejoin BSNL.

BSNL then asked the High Court on May 1, 2012 for another 25 months to settle the issue. The Court has, however, granted the operator only three months.