BENGALURU: The action of the Karnataka Cooperative Milk Producers Federation (KMF) in shunting a candidate who applied for a job to the General Category, merely because the caste certificate he had uploaded online was illegible, is unfair, to say the least, the Karnataka High Court said.
A division bench of Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice Krishna S Dixit passed the order while directing KMF to accept the original caste certificate and consider the appellant’s candidature for selection and appointment to the post of Account Assistant-Grade I by creating a supernumerary post.
Allowing the appeal filed by Devaraj P R, a resident of Yeshwanthpur in Bengaluru, the division bench said, “Turning away a deserving job aspirant is not a happy thing to happen in a welfare state. Courts, in general, and writ courts, in particular, cannot deny justice to a citizen who has brought a worthy cause to their portal, quoting some jurisprudential theories.”
Devaraj filed the appeal questioning the order passed by the single judge, rejecting his petition against not considering his candidature under the reserved category by the KMF for the post of ‘Account Assistant-Grade I’ notified in October 2022, as his caste certificate uploaded online was not legible.
The division bench observed that a simple intimation to the candidate of the so-called defect would have made the impugned action compliant with the principles of natural justice. What heavens would have fallen had the KMF asked the appellant to web-host a legible certificate? No explanation is offered for not undertaking such an innocuous exercise. This falls short of fairness standards, the bench said.