JUDGMENT

R.M. SAHAI, J. (for Panndian, J. and himself)

(1) HOW even the socioeconomic welfare measures taken by the State to tackle unemployment and ameliorate poverty, within its limited resources, gets stifled and flounders due to lack of proper appreciation of its purpose and objective aided by faulty enforcement, aggravated by apathy of those responsible in government to place correct facts, when called upon to do so by courts, and wake up, only, when it is either too late or move on on pain of contempt proceedings resulting in one-sided orders creating rights in favour of some, leading to clash of interest and heart burning among others leaving the courts in dilemma of how to adjust the equities of competing claims. To what extent such frustrating consequences can arise is demonstrated by these applications Filed, on one hand, by what are known as stipendiary graduates in the State of Karnataka for taking contempt proceedings against State and its officials for not complying with orders of this court and on the other by application filed by the State for clarification of the very order, giving rise to contempt proceedings, as usual, not before the point of no return was nearly reached and writ petitions by yet others, who at one time were stipendiary graduates, but were absorbed as provided in the rules and placed in the lowest scale for Assistants, for grant of same pay and grade which was granted by this court to those others who till now, were only stipendiary graduates.

(2) TO comprehend the problem it is necessary to narrate the facts in detail, step by step, during which two important stages were crossed, one, creating right in favour of stipendiary graduates under orders of this court obtained without apprising it of full and complete facts and second, issuing of directions to absorb them as First Division Assistants placing them in higher scale amongst assistants. Normally all this was not necessary to be said but piquant situation that has arisen requires reconsideration of the entire matter afresh, as the stipendiary graduates succeeded in getting orders for absorption of all of them numbering thousands and a jump in higher scale, without any adjudication on merits either in the special leave petition or even in the writ petition on assumption drawn from a vague and an incorrect affidavit filed on behalf of the State.

(3) IN 1977 the government of Karnataka framed a scheme for employment of unemployed graduates, postgraduates and diploma holders. Its salient features were its applicability to persons coming from families having less than Rs. 3,600.00 annual income and no earning member in the family. The value of the stipend was fixed at Rs. 150.00 per month. But since with such amount it would have been difficult for beneficiaries to work in far-off places the scheme visualised employment of such educated unemployed in special programmes located as near as possible to their native places within a Taluka. The stipend was raised in 1979 to Rs. 200.00, in 1982 to Rs. 250.00, then to Rs. 490.00 and finally to Rs. 640.00. After expiry of nearly four and a half years the government decided, further, to help such unemployed youth by framing Karnataka Civil Services (Special Recruitment) Rules, 1982 and reserving 50 of the direct recruitment vacancies existing on the dates the rules came into force to be filled by stipendiary graduates and local candidates in various categories of posts mentioned therein which included First and Second Division Assistants in State civil services by a competitive examination to be conducted by the public service commission. These rules were amended, again, in 1987 and three important changes were made. One, the rules became applicable to any category of posts in group C in the State civil services, second, 50 was bifurcated and 40 was reserved for stipendiary graduates and 10 for local candidates. Third and the most significant amendment was that t