S KRISHNA Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These petitions raise an interesting point touching the Constitutional guarantee to the petitioners enshrined under Art.21 of the Constitution of India.

(2.) It is not in dispute that the petitioners are eking out their livelihood by guiding the visitors to the Mysore Palace which, a few years ago, belonged exclusively to late Maharaja of Mysore. It transpires that after his death, certain changes have taken place as regards the management of the Palace. Certain portions of the Palace are still private property of the late Maharaja and his heirs and certain portions have been taken over by the State Government. But all the same the fact remains that these petitioners were acting as private guides to the visitors who visited Mysore for sight seeing.

(3.) The grievance of the petitioners is that by an executive order which is produced at Annexure-'E' in the writ petition, they have been restrained from functioning as Tourists guides to the Palace and that order vide Annexure-'D' is without authority of law and violative of the protection conferred under Art.21 of the Constitution of India. The learned counsel Mr. Subramanya Jois relied on the decision of the Supreme Court reported in Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation, AIR 1986 SC 180 in support of heir case.