Karnataka HC Rejects TB-Scheme Lab Technician’s Bid To Backdate 2021 Absorption To 2006: He Was Hired By District, Not Health Directorate

The petitioner was appointed on contract by the Deputy Commissioner, Chitradurga District, to work as a Junior Lab Technician in the District Tuberculosis Control Programme.

Although the Karnataka Civil Services (Absorption of Contract Para-medical Staff and Drivers appointed in the Directorate of Health and Family Welfare Services) (Special) Rules, 2006 provided for absorption of specified contract staff, the petitioner was not included in the 2006 absorption notification.

In 2017, the Karnataka State Administrative Tribunal directed the authorities to consider his case for absorption; he was absorbed by notification dated 16 March 2021 and posted thereafter.

He later sought absorption from the 2006 notification date and consequential benefits.

The Tribunal rejected his applications, and he challenged that order under Article 226.

Article 226 permits the Court to issue a writ of mandamus where the applicant establishes a legal right and a corresponding failure by the authority to perform a legal duty.

The Karnataka Civil Services (Absorption of Contract Para-medical Staff and Drivers appointed in the Directorate of Health and Family Welfare Services) (Special) Rules, 2006 provided for absorption of contract para-medical staff and drivers appointed in the Directorate; their scope did not extend, on the facts found by the Court, to the petitioner, who had been appointed to the District Tuberculosis Control Programme by the Deputy Commissioner.

The Court held that the petitioner’s original appointment was to a scheme and not as a contract employee of the Directorate covered by the 2006 Rules.

His later absorption followed the Tribunal’s direction to consider his case and was effected in 2021, with the benefits to which he was entitled from that date.

Because he established no legal right to retrospective absorption under the 2006 notification, the conditions for mandamus were not met; the Court found no error or illegality in the Tribunal’s decision.

It held that he had no legal right to absorption retrospectively from 16 March 2006 and declined to interfere with the Tribunal’s order.

The writ petition was rejected.