Vijayakumar T. and Others vs State of Kerala and Others

Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan, J.—Heard the learned counsel for the petitioners. Petitioners were applicants before the Kerala Administrative Tribunal. They were persons trained in artificial insemination. At one stage, Government permitted them to work as private Artificial Inseminators. On a change in policy, private parties are prohibited from engaging in such activities. Such trained unemployed persons were absorbed as part time contingent employees in the Department of Animal Husbandry under the orders of the Government. The petitioners belong to that group. In due course, they were promoted as Attenders in the respective hospitals/dispensaries. In terms of the relevant Special Rules, they are entitled to be considered for appointment by transfer as Live Stock Inspectors Grade-II. The petitioners, however, wanted to be excluded from the selection process by the Public Service Commission. They went to the Tribunal saying that the competent authority may be directed to exercise the power of exemption in that regard.

The Tribunal, rightly, said that the power of exemption is to be sparingly used and it is a reserve power to be exercised only on valid grounds. When a power to relax a Rule is protected while making a Rule, the power to relax has to be always understood as an exception and as only as the reflection of the existing power to deal with extraordinary circumstances. Any power to relax has always to be understood as one to be exercised in exceptional situations. If a power to relax were to be treated otherwise, that would be in affront to fairness, transparency and hence, would be arbitrary, having regard to Part-Ill of the Constitution of India.

All that the petitioners have to now undergo is a selection process, which will be done by the Public Service Commission.

For the aforesaid reasons, we do not think that the learned Tribunal was wrong in law or in jurisdiction in having dismissed the original application filed by the petitioners. Before us, the petitioners have sought for a further relief; that is to say; a challenge to the Special Rules. That is beyond the purview of the reliefs sought for in the original application filed before the Tribunal, and therefore, the visitorial jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, in the light of the law laid down by the Apex Court in L. Chandra Kumar Vs. Union of India and others, cannot be extended to widen the scope of this original petition to include reliefs not claimed and grounds not raised before the Tribunal. Under such circumstances, we dissuade ourselves from expressing anything on the merits of the so-called challenge that the petitioners want to place as against the statutory rules.

In the result, this original petition fails. The same is, accordingly, dismissed in limine.