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2019 DIGILAW 2256 (KAR)

Sumathi K. S. v. Secretary Mujarai Department

2019-12-06

KRISHNA S.DIXIT

body2019
ORDER : 1. Petitioners in these writ petitions are invoking the writ jurisdiction of this Court in a sense, for assailing the action of the respondents in not extending to them the pay scales admissible to Group 'C and Group 'D' employees of the State Government; they have sought for quashing of the impugned endorsements whereby their request for the grant of the said pay scales have been rejected. 2. After service of notice, the respondents have entered appearance and have filed the Statements of Objections resisting the writ petitions; learned Addl. Advocate General Shri Subramanya R made his submissions on behalf of the official respondents; Smt. Vaishali Hegde, the Panel Counsel made submissions on behalf of the respondent-Temples. 3. Having heard the learned counsel for the parties and having perused the petition papers, this Court declines to grant indulgence in the matter for the following reasons: (a) the Circular dated 31.10.2012 which provides for extension of the pay scales in question specifically conditions that it enures to the benefit of only the permanent employees of the Temples in question; the material produced by the petitioners does not prima facie establish that they are the permanent employees, their claim for regularization/absorption having been negatived by the jurisdictional authority; the Official Memorandum dated 04.01.2007 at Annexure-F to the W.P. No. 9686/2018 etc. itself states that they are working on consolidated wage basis; same is the case with other petitioners too. (b) the contention of the petitioners that all they have been working since very long and similarly placed employees in other Temples have been extended the subject pay scales pursuant to the aforesaid Circular and therefore, they too should be granted the same benefit on the principle of parity falls foul of law; in fact, the subject Circular has been withdrawn vide Memorandum dated 22.08.2019 on the ground that the same was not issued by the respondent-Commissioner for Muzarai Department, a copy whereof is placed on record by the learned AAG vide Memo dated 19.11.2019; the other reason stated for such withdrawal is that the Government has promulgated the concerned Rules vide amendment Notification dated17.07.2019, which is not in challenge. (c) the reliance of the petitioners on the Division Bench (at Dharwad Bench) decision dated 11.09.2019 in W.A. No. 100489/2019 & other connected matters, does not come to their aid, inasmuch as, it cannot be treated as the precedent in the absence of any specific ratio having been laid down therein; this apart, the judgment of the learned single judge dated 18.01.2016 in W.P. No. 35143/2014 which the petitioners bank upon for buttressing their claim has already been recalled vide order dated 09.06.2017, of course, with leave to re-agitate the issue; petitioners cannot much derive benefit from the Division Bench decision, without showing the matching fact matrix. (d) the contention of the petitioners that the official respondents have extended the benefit of subject pay scales to the similarly circumstanced 'D' Category employees working at Tirupathi Thirumala Temple in Andhra Pradesh also does not much help them since the employees of the Temples located outside the State are governed by a different set of Service Rules promulgated under the Karnataka Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1997, as rightly contended by the Panel Counsel, Smt. Vaishali Hegde. (e) the petitioners cannot claim benefit of a Circular issued by the Commissioner for Muzarai Department without showing its justice ability by showing the provision of law which animates it the elements of enforceability; as already mentions above, this aspect of the matter has not been discussed by the Division Bench at Dharwad in its aforesaid decision; this apart, when the Rules promulgated under the 1997 Act hold the field as to the conditions of service and said Rules having been amended vide Notification dated 17.07.2019, the rights of the employees are governed by the said Rules and not by some Circular which apparently lacks legal elements; further, it has been a long settled position of law that in the case of conflict between the Rules and the Circular, the former prevail over the latter. (f) the contentions of the petitioners that the decision of the Apex Court in State of U.P. vs. Aravind Kumar Srivatsava, (2015) 1 SCC 347 , again does not come to their help; at para 22.2 it has been observed that similarly circumstanced persons cannot be denied benefit of a judgment on the ground that they were not the litigants before the Court; this would have come to their help if the petitioners could establish that their case is in all fours matches that in the judgment of the Division Bench at Dharwad. (g) similarly, the decision of the Apex Court in Sabha Shanker Dube vs. DFO and Others, Civil Appeal No. 10956/2018 decided on 14.11.2018, too does not come to the aid of the petitioners inasmuch as they are not the temporary employees but only consolidated wage earners, who stand on a different footing; it hardly needs to be stated that a decision is an authority for the proposition that it actually lays down and not for all that which logically follows there from vide Quinn vs. Letham, (1901) A.C. 495. 4. In the above circumstances, these writ petitions being devoid of merits, are dismissed.