P C MAHESHS Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Except petitioner-7 who was working as a part-time Teacher in Government High School, Besur, Somawarpet Taluk, Kodagu District and who was relieved before the writ petition was filed, all other petitioners were working as part-time Teachers in Government Institutions in Hyssan District, out of whom petitioner-3 was relieved during the pendency of the it petition. Significantly, these Teachers had been appointed to full time posts on part-time basis and at the inception they were receiving pay which was much tower than that the petitioners would have been entitled, had they been appointed on full time basis. It is stated that the ulterior motive behind the enlistment of the services of the petitioners on part-time basis was indirectly a measure of exptoitation by denying equal pay for equal work.

(2.) During the pendency of the writ petitions, the 3rd petitioner was relieved of his post in an arbitrary manner. The 7th petitioner whose services were dispensed with unceremoniously had to approach this Court for relief by writ petitions. It appears that these petitioners were being appointed for a specific academic year only on a temporary part-time basis and this exercise was repeated every year of their service. Though petitioner-5 is a part-time Teacher in a Pre-University College, her predicament is not at variance with the predicament of the other petitioners. In course of time it is possible that these petitioners may suffer from one disability or the other in meeting the requisite qualifications for appointment to full time posts, in which they have been working on part-time basis, unless certain measures are taken by the State Government to regularise their services by framing appropriate rules having due regard to the number of years of service these petitioners have put in. The nature of duty and function which they have been discharging, though on a part-time basis, are in no way different from the nature of duty and function which they would have otherwise discharged had they been appointed on full time basis. Future, probable handicap in the nature of age bar may also be staring in the fate of some of these petitioners. In any event it could be said that their condition is unenviable and therefore, commends a fair and sympathetie treatment, as otherwise they arc confronted with vulnerability to future insecurity in service.

(3.) In the above circumstances, the point is, whether the petitioners are entitled to a mandamus directing respondent-1 to consider regularisation of the petitioners services, even by framing special rules in that behalf?.