BENGALURU: The High Court of Karnataka permitted the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited (KPTCL) to appoint 404 Assistant Engineers which includes 313 non-Kalyana Karnataka quota and 91 Kalyana Karnataka quota.
The court, however, said that the KPTCL shall make it clear in the appointment orders that the appointments shall be subject to the outcome of the writ appeals on the issue.
"In the event, that the appellants succeed and if they are selected, their appointments shall be made by properly fixing the seniority and roster point. 404 candidates who shall be appointed pursuant to this interim order, shall not claim any equity", said the division bench of Chief Justice P S Dinesh Kumar and Justice T G Shivashankare Gowda.
The interim order was passed after hearing a batch of appeals filed against the order dated August 22, 2023, passed by a single judge.
"We are conscious of the fact that KPTCL falls under the 'essential services category' and requires Engineers. It is not in dispute that as per the first list, there were, in all, 501 eligible candidates. As per the revised list which is based on a few incorrect answers, as many as 135 candidates have been added. The number of applicants before us today is 55. We see some force in the arguments of the counsels praying for an order to permit KPTCL to appoint the Engineers subject to the outcome of these writ appeals", the court said.
The competitive examinations were conducted by the Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) and a list was announced on January 3, 2023. Subsequently, it was found that a few key answers were not correct and thereafter, a revised list was prepared on February 4, 2023. As per this list, there are 636 eligible candidates.
This was challenged by some of the candidates including Chethan K, represented by advocate Prithveesh M K, before the single judge. The single judge had quashed the key answers and provisional merit list published on February 4, 2023, and directed the KPTCL to proceed on the provisional score list of eligible candidates dated January 3, 2023, and conclude the process of selection within four months.
Against this order, a batch of appeals were filed before the division bench. Meanwhile, the counsels representing the appellants and Advocate General Shashikiran Shetty submitted that the KPTCL which falls under the essential services category may be permitted to appoint 404 candidates, though there are 501 candidates found eligible. The KPTCL may be permitted to make appointments making it clear that the appointments shall be subject to the outcome of these writ appeals and parties shall not claim equities, they prayed the court.