RTI exposes irregular promotions of 17 staff in Chennai welfare department

An Right to Information (RTI) response has exposed a 16-year-old promotion irregularity within the Department for the Welfare of Differently Abled Persons in Chennai, revealing that 17 underqualified employees were promoted to key administrative roles. The employees, who held only Class X or Class XII qualifications, were promoted to junior rehabilitation officers (JROs) and eventually rose to high-ranking senior positions, including assistant director and deputy director.

The promotion irregularities began following a 2009 government order issued by the social welfare and nutritious meal programme department. This order relaxed the prescribed educational qualifications for promoting orthotic technicians to JROs. Instead of requiring the mandatory postgraduate degree in psychology, social work, or sociology, the order permitted orthotic technicians with 10 years of service to become eligible for the promotion.

According to official records obtained by RTI applicant K Parthasarathy, 17 employees possessing only Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC) or higher secondary qualifications were promoted as temporary JROs based on this order.

To bypass the qualification gap, these employees later obtained postgraduate degrees in sociology through the open university system. However, the Human Resource Management Department’s Government Order No. 116 of 2010 explicitly states that candidates who obtain a postgraduate degree without first acquiring a basic undergraduate degree are not eligible for appointment or promotion in public service.

Following the 2010 human resource department order, the then-commissioner for differently abled welfare, P R Shampath, took action. In official proceedings dated August 8, 2010, Shampath cited the order and directed that the ineligible employees be removed from the seniority list. He also ordered that a fresh promotion panel be prepared. Despite these explicit instructions, the employees went on to attain senior administrative roles within the department.