The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : High Court sets aside appointment of KUWSDB MD

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jan 11, 2006

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

High Court sets aside appointment of KUWSDB MD

Staff Reporter

BANGALORE: The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday set aside the appointment on contract of Srinivas Reddy from February 1, 2004 as Managing Director of the Karnataka Urban Water Supply and Drainage Board (KUWSDB).

It said that Mr. Reddy was a usurper of the post and ordered issue of quo warranto to oust him from office.

Justice N. Kumar passed the order on a petition by the KUWSDB Employees Association and its president, V.N. Halakate, who had challenged the appointment on contract of Mr. Reddy from 2004. Mr. Reddy had retired as managing director on January 31, 2003 and the same day the Government issued a notification reappointing him on contract.

The petitioners said a single judge of the High Court had in an earlier petition on April 12, 2002 upheld their plea and set aside the appointment of Mr. Reddy as Managing Director. The State and Mr. Reddy had appealed against it and had managed to obtain an interim stay against the single judge order. Mr. Reddy continued in the post till January 31, 2004 when he retired. The next day, he was reappointed Managing Director even though he did not have the necessary qualifications and the appointment was against the regulations and the Board Act.

`Without merit'

Holding his appointment to be ad-hoc and without merit and castigating the Government for making such appointments, Justice Kumar said they were negation of fair play.

Justice Kumar said ad hoc appointments were "de hors" the act and rules and the executive power could be used to fill in the gaps and such power should not be used to supplant the law but only to supplement the law. Moreover, sub-section (2) of Section of the Act did not empower the Government to make such ad-hoc appointments. Such appointments were visualised only to tide over unforeseen exigencies but they were only stopgap or temporary arrangements till a regular appointment was done.

Debunked

Justice Kumar debunked the Government stand that Mr. Reddy was reappointed Managing Director after his retirement as the board had taken up World Bank projects and that Mr. Reddy had been appreciated for his role in effectively taking them up.

He said Karnataka was the land of Sir M. Visvesvaraya and it had produced engineers in abundance of international repute. There is even today no dearth of such talent and such ad hoc appointments are an insult to the five-crore people of Karnataka.

The court said no one was indispensable and if the Government was unable to identify a competent person in two years, it showed that the Government's vision had blurred and this required remedial measures.

It would also dent the reputation of Karnataka as one of the well administered states.

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