The main legal point established in the judgment is that actions of legal malice, such as terminating employees for oblique purposes, are not permissible. The court affirmed the rights of the appellants as permanent employees and directed their restoration with back wages and benefits.

ORDER

Diary No(s). 6378/2020, 18359/2021, 4237/2020, 11653/2021 & 18358/2021

1. Learned counsel for the petitioners prays for and are granted liberty to withdraw the present petitions.

2. The SLPs are dismissed as withdrawn.

3. Delay condoned.

... .

4. Petitions filed by the Mahatma Gandhi University[1] and Centre for Professional and Advances Studies[2] challenge the judgment passed by the High Court of Kerala at Ernakulam in Writ Appeal No.2512 of 2018 and other connected matter.

[1] ("MGU" for short)

[2] ("CPAS" for short)

5. While dealing with the actions of MGU and CPAS created by the Government of Kerala, with presence of one of the representative of the MGU on its Board, the High Court observed as under:

"The action of the University, in cohorts with the Government, to form a Society and terminate the employees in the SFI's, on grounds of abolition of posts, while the institutions are carried on under the newly formed Society smacks of legal malice. It is for an oblique purpose and indirect object; which is to set at naught the inter-parties judgments of this Court and the supreme Court in the various litigations, even prior to W.A. 442/14. It is a direct affront to rule of law and least expected of an instrumentality of the State. The decision of this Court in W.A 794/13 and connected cases, affirmed by the Supreme Court, is attempted to be circumvented by this action.

We however do not fault the formation of the Society or the transfer of the institutions and the courses, which is a policy decision. But the permanent employees of the University are to be deployed to the Society as per the requirements, on the very same terms and the excess employees retrenched in accordance with law. There can also be no transfer of employment, unless with the consent of the employees, as has been declared in Jawahar Nehru University (supra). The measure of transfer though found to be actuated by legal malice; this Court would not interfere with the formation of the Society, but to obliterate the malice, it would be appropriate to direct the University to deploy employees, with their consent, to the CPAS, in accordance with the present requirement, but on the same terms and conditions they had with the University. Those whose services are not required will be terminated by way of retrenchment, on terms we will presently put forth and those who do not consent, on terms of payment of gratuity and six months notice pay, as provided in the Statutes."

6. After considering the entire controversy, the conclusions were arrived at in segment XII of the judgment as under:

"XII (i) We allow all the writ appeals except W.A. Nos.10, 663 & 1018 of 2019 and the claims of appellants 4 to 7 in W.A. No.9 of 2019, setting aside the judgment of the learned Single Judge and finding the terminations illegal.

XII (ii) W.A. Nos.10, 663 & 1018 of 2019 and the claims of appellants 4 to 7 in W.A. No.9 of 2019 shall stand rejected and the following reliefs and directions shall not apply to them.

XII (iii) The resolution of the Syndicate produced at Exh.P21 (W.A. No.156/2019) and the consequent termination of the appellants by orders similar to Exh.P22 (W.A. No.156/2019), in the appeals allowed, would stand set aside.

XII (iv) We declare the appellants to be permanent employees of the University, having the status of Teachers of the Self financing Institution, which has the status of an unaided affiliated college, managed by the University.

XII (v) The termination of the appellants having been found illegal they would be restored to the services of the University and deemed to have been continued in the service of the University uninterruptedly with all benefits dehors the orders of termination, which are set aside.

XII (vi) We would not interfere with Ext. P23 (W.A. No. 156/2019) since we do not find any infirmity in the constitution of the Society which was for the purpose of better administration and management of the SFI's. The formation of the Society and the transfer of SFI