Judgment:
IN THE HIGH COURT OF KARNATAKA DHARWAD BENCH R DATED THIS THE06H DAY OF NOVEMBER, 2019 BEFORE THE HONBLE MR. JUSTICE R DEVDAS WRIT PETITION NOS.100525-100528/2017 & 100529-100532/2017 (S-REG)BETWEEN :
1. SANNA FAKIRAPPA, AGE:
51. YEARS, OCC: SERVICE PANCHAYAT RAJ ENGINEERING DIVISION R/O. GANESH NAGAR, KOPPAL. DIST: KOPPAL2 HABEEB PASHA, AGE:
43. YEARS, OCC: SERVICE PANCHAYAT RAJ ENGINEERING DIVISION R/O. NANDI NAGAR, KOPPAL. DIST: KOPPAL3 MOHAMMED JAVEED PASHA AGE:
39. YEARS, OCC: SERVICE PANCHAYAT RAJ ENGINEERING DIVISION R/O. BEHIND TALUKA KOPPAL. DIST: KOPPAL SHARANAPPA VEERAPPA DEVAREDDI AGE:
50. YEARS, OCC: SERVICE PANCHAYAT RAJ ENGINEERING DIVISION R/O. KALYAN NAGAR, KINNAL ROAD, KOPPAL. DIST: KOPPAL SHABEER HUSAIN4 5. 2 6. AGE:
47. YEARS, OCC: SERVICE PANCHAYAT RAJ ENGINEERING DIVISION R/O. BANNIKATTI ONI, KOPPAL. DIST: KOPPAL PARASAPPA AGE:
45. YEARS, OCC: SERVICE PANCHAYAT RAJ ENGINEERING DIVISION R/O. BANNIKATTI ONI, KOPPAL. DIST: KOPPAL7 MAHESH HADIMANI8 AGE:
35. YEARS, OCC: SERVICE PANCHAYAT RAJ ENGINEERING DIVISION R/O. JAWHAAR ROAD, KOPPAL KOPPAL. DIST: KOPPAL KALLANAGOUDA OJANHALLI AGE:
41. YEARS, OCC: SERVICE PANCHAYAT RAJ ENGINEERING DIVISION R/O. KALYAN NAGAR, KINYAL ROAD, KOPPAL. DIST: KOPPAL ... PETITIONERS (BY SRI. ANAND R KOLLI, ADVOCATE) AND1 THE STATE OF KARNATAKA, REPRESENTED BY ITS CHIEF SECRETARY TO THE GOVERNMENT, VIDHANA SOUDHA, BANGALORE THE STATE OF KARNATAKA REPRESENTED BY ITS SECRETARY GOVERNMENT RURAL DEVELOPMENT AND PANCHAYAT RAJ BANGALORE THE STATE OF KARNATAKA REPRESENTED BY ITS PRINCIPAL2 3. 3 SECRETARY TO THE GOVERNMENT PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT M.S. BUILDING, BANGALORE THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER ZILLA PANCHAYAT, KOPPAL4
... RESPONDENT
S (BY SRI. RAJA RAGHAVENDRA NAIK, HCGP FOR R1 TO R3; SRI. BHUSHAN B. KULKARNI, ADV. FOR R4) THESE WRIT PETITIONS ARE FILED UNDER ARTICLES226AND227OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA PRAYING TO (A) QUASH THE IMPUGNED ORDER DATED2207.2016 PASSED BY THE RESPONDENT NO.4, AS THE SAME IS HEREWITH PRODUCED AND MARKED AS ANNEXURE-N, ONLY IN RESPECT OF PETITIONERS ARE CONCERNED, (B) DIRECT THE RESPONDENT NO.4 AUTHORITY TO REGULARISE THE SERVICE OF THE PETITIONERS TO THE RESPECTIVE POSTS AND CONSEQUENTLY DIRECT THE RESPONDENT NO.4 AUTHORITY TO GIVE ALL SERVICE BENEFITS INCLUDING MONITORY BENEFITS AS EXPEDITIOUSLY AS POSSIBLE. THESE WRIT PETITIONS COMING ON FOR HEARING ON INTERLOCUTORY APPLICATIONS THIS DAY, THE COURT MADE THE FOLLOWING:
4. ORDER R.DEVDAS J., (ORAL): The petitioners contend that, they have been serving as Daily Wage Workers in the Panchayat Raj Engineering Division, at Koppal District and their request for regularization has been rejected by the 4th respondent Chief Executive Officer, Zilla Panchayat, Koppal, by issuing an endorsement dated 06.06.2016 and corrected as 22.07.2016 at Annexure-N.
2. The learned counsel for the petitioner submits that, the petitioners joined the service on various dates starting from 01.05.1994 to 01.06.2000, as found in the tabular column in the memorandum of writ petition. Learned counsel submits that, several Daily Wage Workers like the petitioners had earlier approached this Court in the Writ Petition Nos.8809/2006 and connected matters. It is further submitted that, the said writ petitions were disposed off 5 by the order dated 03.04.2008 in the light of the decision of the Honble Supreme Court of India in the case of State of Karnataka Vs. Umadevi and others reported in (2006) 4 SCC1and U.P. State Electricity Board Vs. Pooran Chandra Pandey and others reported in (2008) 1 SCC (L&S) 736, directing the respondent-authorities to consider the case of each of the petitioners relating to their conditions of service in terms of the scheme or other provisions of law on the subject, taking into consideration the law laid down in Umadevis case (supra). It is further submitted that, another batch of writ petitions in W.P.Nos.39117- 176/1999 were also filed by the Daily Wage Employees which were also referred to in the Writ Petition Nos.8809/2006 and connected matters. However, since no action was taken in respect of the directions given by this Court, the contempt proceedings in CCC No.669/2006 was initiated by the petitioners therein. When charges were framed in the contempt 6 proceedings, the State Government approached the Supreme Court of India in Civil Appeal No.3338/2014. It is submitted that, the Honble Supreme Court, disposed off the Civil Appeal No.3338/2014 [Malathi Das (Retd.) Now P.B.Mahishya & Ors. Vs. Suresh & Ors.,]. by order dated 07.03.2014 with a direction to the respondent-authorities of the State to regularize the services of the respondents therein who were 74 in number, within a period of two months from the date of receipt of the order.
3. The learned counsel for the petitioners has pointed out to several such directions given by this Court in various cases which have been cited in the memorandum of writ petition. The sum and substance of the contention of the learned counsel for the petitioners is that the 4th respondent-Chief Executive Officer, could not have rejected the applications given by the petitioners seeking regularization on the ground 7 that they were not parties to the proceedings in Writ Petition Nos.39117-176/1999 and Civil Appeal No.3338/2014 before the Honble Supreme Court of India. In support of this contention, the learned counsel for the petitioners has placed reliance on a Judgment of the Supreme Court of India in the case of State of Karnataka and others Vs. M.L.Kesari and others reported in (2010) 9 SCC247 4. Per contra, the learned HCGP seeks to justify the impugned order passed by the 4th respondent-The Chief Executive Officer of the Zilla Panchayat. The learned HCGP, while placing reliance on a Judgment of a co-ordinate Bench in the case of Smt. Preethi Bhandage and others Vs. State of Karnataka and others, reported in 2019 (5) Kar. L.J.412 would submit that the co-ordinate Bench has taken note of various decisions and has ultimately come to a conclusion that the regular appointments are required 8 to be done in terms of the Cadre Recruitment Rules, 2010. The learned HCGP would reiterate the observations made in the case of Smt. Preethi Bhandage (supra) that a person appointed temporarily on ad-hoc basis has no right to the post. Similarly a Casual or a Daily Wage workers or a staff will also have no such right merely because a person continues under the interim orders of the Court, such conditions to the post cannot confer any right to continuance or regularization.
5. Heard the learned counsel for the petitioners, the learned counsel for the respondents and perused the writ papers.
6. On going through the decision of the Honble Supreme Court in the case of M.L.Kesari (supra), this Court finds that the Honble Supreme Court noticed that, at the end of six months from the date of decision in Umadevis Case (supra), cases of several Daily 9 Wage/Ad-hoc/Casual employees were still pending consideration before the Courts. Consequently, several departments and instrumentalities did not commence the one-time regularization process. On the other hand, some Government Departments or instrumentalities undertook one-time exercise excluding several employees from consideration either on the ground that their cases were pending in Courts or due to sheer oversight. In such circumstances, it was held that, the employees who were entitled to be considered in terms of paragraph 53 of the decision in Umadevis case, will not lose their right to be considered for regularization, merely because the one-time exercise was completed without considering their cases, or because six months period mentioned in paragraph No.53 of Umadevis case has expired. In this background the Honble Supreme Court held that, the term one-time measure has to be understood in its proper perspective. It was further held that, this would merely mean that after the decision in 10 Umadevis case, each department or each instrumentality should undertake one-time exercise and prepare list of all casual/daily wage or ad-hoc employees who have been working for more than 10 years without intervention of the Courts and subject them to a process of verification as to whether they are working against vacant posts and possess requisite qualification for the post if so, regularize their services.
7. In the light of the Judgment in the case of M.L.Kesari (supra), this Court finds that in the present petition, the petitioners have been working from 01.05.1994 etc., and the latest case is one of the petitioners joining services from 01.06.2000. What is important is to notice that the 4th respondentChief Executive Officer has considered the case of the regularization of various persons and has passed an order dated 15.11.2014 regularizing the services of 5 persons. It is also seen from the very same order that 11 out of 74 persons in favour of whom directions were issued by the Honble Supreme Court of India in Civil Appeal No.3338/2014, the Department of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj had regularized the services of such persons at various stages.
8. This Court had an occasion to deal with a situation where Temporary Lecturers/Guest Lecturers in the University of Mysore had approached this Court in W.P.No.51342/2016 and connected matters. While disposing of the said writ petitions, by order dated 23.04.2019 this Court took note of the fact that the petitioners in those writ petitions had put in more than 10 years, but after the decision in Umadevis case. In that regard, the decision of the Honble Apex Court in the case of Narendra Kumar Tiwari & others Vs. State of Jharkhand and others reported in (2018) 8 SCC238and the case of M.L.Kesari (supra) was taken note of and it was held that their Lordships proceeded 12 to clarify that the State and its instrumentalities were required to consider the entire issue in a contextual perspective and not only from the point of view of the interest of the State, financial or otherwise. The interest of employees is also required to be kept in mind. It was also held that in spite of the Regularization Rules of 2015, some of the employees were denied the benefit on irrelevant considerations and eventually the State had short-circuited the process of regular appointment and instead went on making appointments on irregular basis, which was hardly held to be a good governance. More importantly as held in the case of M.L.Kesari, the State and its instrumentalities should have undertaken a one-time exercise and prepared a list of all Casual, Daily Wage or Ad-hoc employees who have been working from more than 10 years without intervention of Courts and Tribunals and subjected them to a process of verification as to whether they are working against vacant posts and possess requisite qualification for the 13 post and if so, regularize their services. As found from the impugned endorsement, the application of the petitioners have simply been rejected on the basis that the petitioners herein were not parties to the writ proceedings or the proceedings before the Honble Supreme Court of India. When the decision of the Honble Supreme Court in the case of M.L.Kesari is taken into account, it would be incumbent upon the respondents to have considered the applications of the petitioners while regularizing the services of other applicants and as on the date of consideration of the application of the rest of the employees, the case of the petitioners also should have been considered. The reason assigned by the respondent-Chief Executive Officer that the case of the petitioners could not be considered since they were not parties to the earlier writ petitions, does not stand the test of judicial scrutiny. 14 9. As noted earlier, in the case of Dr. Kantaraju M. Vs. State of Karnataka in W.P.No.51342/2016 and connected matters, this Court had directed the University of Mysore to consider the case of the petitioners under the same scheme of regularization where other similarly situated candidates were considered. Therefore, in this case too, the respondent-authorities are required to consider the case of the petitioners under the scheme of regularization under which other similarly situated persons were considered for regularization. The authorities are of- course required to consider the educational qualifications of the petitioners before regularizing. The respondents may also consider the fact that the petitioners herein have continued to serve with the respondents, without intervention of any Court order or orders of Tribunal. 15 10. With these observations, the petitions are allowed in part and the impugned order dated 22.07.2016 at Annexure-N, is hereby quashed and set aside.
11. The 4th respondent-Chief Executive Officer, Zilla Panchayat, Koppal is hereby directed to consider the case of the petitioners for regularization in terms of the scheme of regularization under which other contract employees or Daily Wage Employees were considered, and pass orders as expeditiously as possible at any rate, within a period of eight weeks from the date of receipt of this Order. *Svh/- Sd/- JUDGE