STATE OF KERALA Vs. M.G. MATHEW

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The State is aggrieved with the order passed by the learned Single Judge granting entire service benefits for the leave period, in which the writ petitioner had completed a higher Diploma in French, which course was undertaken in France. The learned Single Judge also relied on Mahesh v. State of Kerala [2011 (2) KLT 930], which has been approved by a Division Bench in State of Kerala and Others v. M.D. Mahesh [2012 (3) KHC 575].

(2.) The petitioner in the writ petition was working as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of French in the Mar Ivanios College, Thiruvananthapuram; an aided institution. He retired as Principal from that College in the year 2011. The petitioner was granted leave as per Exts. P2 and P3 for two spells. The petitioner, on the basis of the leave granted, went abroad and completed the course. The petitioner joined back the Institution presumably in the year 2000. The petitioner then made representations for converting the leave from Rule 88 of Part-I of the Kerala Service Rules, 1959 [for brevity, 'the KSR'] to Rule 91A. The same having been rejected the petitioner was before this Court with a writ petition in the year 2003, i.e. three years after joining back from leave.

(3.) The learned Counsel for the petitioner submits that in fact the recommendation of the Deputy Director of Collegiate Education as seen from Ext. P1 as also Ext. P6, pursuant to a representation, was for permitting the petitioner to avail of the service benefits for the period in which he had studied for a Diploma course in France, that too in the subject of which he was a faculty in the aided College. The learned Counsel for the petitioner submits that the Diploma would enhance the quality of the duties discharged as a faculty and inure to the benefit of the students and in the said circumstances the leave should have been sanctioned under Rule 91A of Part-I KSR. It is also submitted that there were other instances of the Government having sanctioned leave under Rule 91A KSR, as evidenced from Ext. P5, wherein the person was granted leave under Rule 88, but later converted to Rule 91A.