Stani Varghese vs State of Kerala and The Director of Panchayath

J. Chelameswar, C.J.—The unsuccessful Petitioner in W.P. (C) No.5730 of 2011 is the Appellant herein.

The Appellant secured employment under the State of Kerala which is called the ''Panchayat Municipal Service''. The Appellant was appointed to the said service in 1987 under the compassionate appointment scheme in view of the fact that the Appellant''s father who was an employee of the State of Kerala died in harness. It appears that the father of the Appellant belonged to a service known as ''Panchayat Common Service''. Therefore the Appellant believes; the correctness of which we do not propose to examine now; that, he is entitled as of right to be appointed in the Panchayat Common Service. He made certain representations to the Government praying that he be appointed in the Panchayat Common Service; without any response from the State.

Eventually both the abovementioned services came to be amalgamated some time in the year 1994. The said amalgamation was the subject matter of litigation before this Court which eventually ended up in Supreme Court and the Supreme Court upheld the amalgamation. Any such amalgamation of two services obviously has adverse effects on the service prospectus of some group of employees or the other. It so happened in the instant case and the Appellant''s promotional prospectus were adversely affected. Complaining that, if the Appellant was appointed to the post under the Panchayat Common Service, such a consequence of the service prospectus to the Appellant would not have arisen, the Appellant herein approached this Court by the instant writ petition which was dismissed by the judgment under appeal and hence this appeal.

By the judgment under appeal, a learned Judge of this Court dismissed the writ petition on the ground that there was inordinate delay in approaching this Court. The relevant portion of the judgment under appeal reads as follows:

Apart from that, the was appointed as early as in 1987. It is too late in the day for the Petitioner to contend that he should have been appointed in the Panchayat Common Service Department instead of Panchayat Ministerial Service.

We see no reason to take a different view and to interfere with the judgment under appeal. The Writ Appeal is therefore dismissed at the admission stage.