BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court confirmed the imposition of a penalty of dismissing Basha P (55) from service by the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC), considering his history of being found guilty for repetitive misconduct. He hails from Peresandra village in Chikkaballapur taluk.
What is interesting is that he was caught in eight cases of not issuing tickets to passengers, when the inquiry into the case of not issuing tickets of Rs 142 was pending. In all, he was punished in 65 cases.
The division bench of Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice C M Joshi said, “Initially, it appears that the punishment of dismissal on account of non-issue of tickets of an aggregate value of Rs 142 is harsh, but it is also necessary to remember the past conduct of Basha. The show cause notice dated July 3, 2019, issued to him had listed out 57 instances of misconduct. One of the cases was pending, but penalties had been imposed on the appellant in the other 56 cases of misconduct. Most of the said cases were of non-issuance of tickets,” the court observed.
The court further said that Basha was called upon to improve his conduct, but there was no improvement. On January 13, 2019, the officials carried out a sudden check at Yelahanka while Basha was on duty. They found that among the passengers, two people travelling from Mekhri Circle to Gowribidanur had not been issued a ticket of Rs 71 each.
However, he defended that the two passengers were wearing headphones and were busy on their phones and had forgotten to obtain the tickets from him. Later, he was found guilty and dismissed from service on March 5, 2020.
This was challenged before the Labour Court, which ordered KSRTC to reinstate in March 2022. This was questioned by it before the single judge, who confirmed the dismissal order in December 2023. Therefore, Basha filed the appeal before the division bench, which confirmed the dismissal order.