K NARAYANI HEGDE Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal is preferred against the judgment of the Karnataka Administrative Tribunal in application No. 612 of 1990 dated 10. 10. 1990. After the filing of the special leave petition but before the grant of leave, the Petitioner in the special leave petition died and her legal representatives were brought on record. Thereafter, leave was granted limited to the question whether the Appellants could be granted any money compensation. The Appellants should be allowed to recover money compensation if the same could have been allowed to the deceased-Appellant, if she had been alive.

(2.) Initially, the Appellant was appointed in the office of the Block Development Officer as Mukhya Sevika. The said Office was part of the Department of Rural Development and Panchayatraj in the State of Karnataka. Consequent to reorganization of the Department, Government of Karnataka passed an order on 3.1.1979 consequent to which, 175 posts of Mukhya Sevikas (a post to which the Appellant was appointed in the Department of Rural Development) were abolished. Simultaneously, 117 posts of Mukhya Sevikas were created in a new Department called the Department of Women and Children's Welfare. The existing incumbents in the cadre of Mukhya Sevikas numbering 117, in the Department of Rural Development were, by the aforesaid order, deemed to have been "transferred" to the Department of Women and Children's Welfare. It so happened, that while there was a promotional avenue from the post or Mukhya Sevikas to the post of Probation Officer Grade II in the Department of Rural Development in which the Appellant was initially appointed, there was no such promotional post in the Department of Women and Children's Welfare. The result was that the Appellant could not get any promotion whatsoever.

(3.) The Appellant made a representation and thereafter filed a Writ Petition in the High Court which Writ Petition was transferred to the Administrative Tribunal in the year 1984. The Tribunal in its judgment dated 11.12.1987 took up for consideration the question relating to the absence of promotional avenues in the Department to which the Appellant was transferred. Before the said Tribunal, a counter affidavit was filed by the State of Karnataka to the effect that the Government proposed an amendment to the Rules by creation of post of Probation officer Grade II in the Women and Children's Welfare Department to the extent of 35% of the post, so far as Mukhya Sevikas were concerned. The Tribunal disposed of the Writ Petition directing that the amendments might be carried out within a period of three months.