Forest Staff Involved In Neutralising Bandit Veerappan Entitled To Parity In Reward Consideration With STF Personnel: Karnataka High Court
Granting relief to several forest department officers who took part in 'Operation Cocoon' to apprehend the notorious forest bandit Veerappan in 2004, the Karnataka High Court has directed the State to consider sanctioning the withheld rewards to those who were part of the Special Task Force (STF) within 12 weeks.The single-judge bench of Justice Sachin Shankar Magadum held that the 2015 order...
Granting relief to several forest department officers who took part in 'Operation Cocoon' to apprehend the notorious forest bandit Veerappan in 2004, the Karnataka High Court has directed the State to consider sanctioning the withheld rewards to those who were part of the Special Task Force (STF) within 12 weeks.
The single-judge bench of Justice Sachin Shankar Magadum held that the 2015 order of the Forest Department, which restricted the cash payments to a few officers part of the STF during the demise of Veerappan, a sandalwood smuggler and brigand, was 'discriminatory'.
“…The Coordinate Bench, upon an elaborate examination of the factual matrix, has categorically held that once the names of the personnel, including those from the Forest Department, are found in the list of eligible beneficiaries prepared pursuant to the Government Order dated 08.07.2005, the State is estopped from denying such benefit on a specious plea that only a limited set of officers, who were present on the date when Koose Munisamy Veerappan was neutralized on 18.10.2004, would alone be entitled for the reward. The said contention of the State has been expressly rejected as being arbitrary, discriminatory, and contrary to the very object of the Government Order…”
The single judge bench, in its order dated April 21, also opined that the forest officials in the current batch of writ petitions stand on 'identical footing' akin to the petitioners before the coordinate bench of the High Court earlier. The denial of reward would amount to 'perpetuation of an illegality', the court added.
The plea had been filed by several retired and currently serving forest guards, watchers, drivers, etc., who served in the STF during the relevant time period.
After Veerappan was neutralised in 2004, the Director General and Inspector General of Police sent a proposal to the government suggesting rewards for the personnel from the forest and police departments who were part of the STF, as well as the informants.
On July 8, 2005, several members were identified as eligible for the reward for the roles they had played in 'Operation Cocoon', including the names of the aggrieved petitioners. When the rewards were not disbursed promptly, a few of the eligible personnel approached the High Court, wherein the latter directed that the representations made by the personnel be considered. Later, on August 17, 2015, the government issued an endorsement that identified only 6 persons who were part of the STF on the day of Veerappan's death as eligible for the reward.
In WP No. 10982/2018, the aforesaid endorsement was quashed by the coordinate bench in 2024, directing the payment of pending rewards. The similarly placed personnel in the current batch of petitions then approached the High Court for a similar, favourable order.
Justice Magadum, while considering the matter in light of the earlier coordinate bench judgment, held that when the substratum of the dispute[ 2017 endorsement] itself has been quashed by the High Court, the state should have followed the court's directions instead of forcing the eligible personnel to approach the court separately.
“…when a Court[coordinate bench] has adjudicated upon an issue and granted relief in respect of a class of persons, the State and its instrumentalities, being model employers, are under a constitutional obligation to extend the benefit of such adjudication to all similarly situated persons, without driving each one of them to approach the Court individually. In this regard, though rendered in a different factual context, the principles enunciated by the Division Bench in Nagappa vs. State of Karnataka are squarely applicable to the case on hand”, the court iterated, noting that the matter has already attained finality by the judgment of the coordinate court, which would require its benefits to be extended to the current petitioners too.
Noting the above, the court allowed the batch of writ petitions and instructed the state government to consider the petitioners' case for release of the reward amount in terms of the Government Order dated July 8, 2005, keeping in view the law laid down in the earlier batch of writ petitions.
On the principle of parity, the benefit of rewards should be extended to the current petitioners as well, 'without driving them to further rounds of litigation', the court concluded.
Case Title: Srinivasa S & ors. v. State of Karnataka
Case No: Writ Petition No. 1190 of 2026 c/w WP Nos. 31956, 34040, 36589 of 2025 and WP No. 8003/2026
Appearances: Advocate B.S. Nagaraj for the petitioners, Additional Government Advocate Aditya Diwakar for the State