Karnataka HC Pulls Up Milk Producers Federation For "Shunting" Reserved Category Candidate Sans Opportunity To Rectify Social Status Certificate

The Karnataka High Court recently pulled up the Karnataka Cooperative Milk Producers Federation Limited for "shunting" a reserved category candidate to the general seat merely because the Social Status Certificate which he had uploaded with the application was not clearly visible.

A division bench of Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice Krishna S Dixit said a simple intimation to the candidate of the so called defect would have been made the impugned action compliant with the principles of natural justice.

“Turning away a deserving job aspirant is not a happy thing to happen in a Welfare State...No explanation is offered for not undertaking such an innocuous exercise. This falls militantly short of the fairness standards, as rightly argued by learned counsel for the Appellant.”

The bench thus directed the Federation to reconsider the candidature of Devraj PR for selection and appointment to the post advertised.

The petitioner had approached the court challenging a single judge bench order which had rejected his petition challenging his non-selection for appointment to the post.

The Federation opposed the plea saying the very terms of Recruitment Notification provide for rejection of Online Applications inter alia on the ground of unclear/vague document.

The bench firstly noted that the Co-operative Federation answers the description of State under Article 12 of the Constitution and therefore, it has to conduct all its affairs in a just and reasonable way. Following which it said the Instruction in recruitment notification for automatic rejection of candidature on errors "cannot be construed to exclude the principles of natural justice which are at times treated as part of Article 14 of the Constitution. It has been a settled position of law that even in statutory instruments, the principles of natural justice should be read into as an inbuilt mechanism unless excluded expressly or by necessary implication. Law Reports are replete with such a preposition.”

It noted that it is not the case of the Federation that the subject Certificate was spurious or otherwise inadmissible. "What is contended is that the same was not legible when web-hosted. We fail to understand is what heavens would have fallen down had the Federation asked the Appellant to web-host a legible Certificate,” the bench remarked.

Accordingly it allowed the appeal.

Appearance: Advocate J Prashanth for Appellant.

Senior Advocate S S Naganand for Sumana Naganand for R1.

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Kar) 427

Case Title: Devaraj P R And Karnataka Cooperative Milk Producers Federation Limited.

Case No: WRIT APPEAL NO. 708 OF 2023

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