High Court's Article 227 jurisdiction is supervisory, not appellate; no interference absent patent perversity or grave injustice in tribunal orders.

JUDGMENT :

Muralee Krishna, J.

The applicant in O.A.(EKM) No.581 of 2025 on the file of the Kerala Administrative Tribunal at Thiruvananthapuram (the ‘Tribunal’ for short), filed this Original Petition, invoking the supervisory jurisdiction of this Court under Article 227 of the Constitution of India , challenging Ext.P2 order dated 11.04.2025 passed by the Tribunal in that original application.

2. The petitioner filed O.A.(EKM) No.581 of 2025, invoking the provisions under Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act 1985, seeking the following reliefs;

“i. Issue an order or direction to the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd Respondents to initiate steps to regularize the period of service rendered with the defunct Calicut Development Authority i.e, from 10.02.1999 to 29.06.2002 (three years four months and 19 days) as notionally qualifying service for revision and re-fixation of pensionary benefits

ii. Issue an Order or Direction to the 5^th Respondent to re- fix the pay in appropriate pay scale by reckoning the initial service deeming that it is qualifying service ought to have brought forward with the subsequent service enabling the Applicant to get the revised retiaral benefits.

iii. Issue an Order or direction to the 5^th Respondent to disburse the arrear monetary claims if any accrued as respect to the period under revision and re-fixation reckoned as prayed for in the O.A

iv. Issue an Order or Direction to the 7^th Respondent to make available the initial service file of the Applicant for its verification as and when required by the appropriate authority

v. Issue an Order or Direction to the appropriate authority to render the needful co-ordination in this context within a fixed time frame.

vi. Issue an order or Direction to the 8thRespondent to re- verify the total service period deeming that the service from 10.02.1999 to 29.06.2002 as qualifying service as per the legal prescriptions and work out the final retiaral benefits accordingly”.

3. Going by the averments in the original application, the petitioner has a physical disability of above 55%. The case of the petitioner is that, in commemoration of the Golden Jubilee of Indian Independence, the petitioner and other similarly placed persons had been re-deployed into the service of various Departments/institutions. The petitioner got re-deployment at the erstwhile Calicut Development Authority (‘CDA’ for short) as Assistant Grade-II. There exist several Government orders and Judicial orders for regularising the service periods of the physically disabled persons, and this has benefited a large number of similarly placed candidates. Meanwhile, the CDA had been on the verge of winding up, and the personnel and administration matters had been vested with the Government, and thereby the re- deployed service period of the petitioner from 10.02.1999 to 29.06.2002 had been skipped out of the contextual consideration by the appropriate authorities. While continuing with the CDA, the petitioner had been advised by the Kerala Public Service Commission for the post of LDC in the Women and Child Development Department. Presently, the petitioner is a retiree from the Women & Child Development Department, whose initial provisional service rendered with the CDA has not been reckoned for pension and other related retirement benefits. There are ample grounds for reckoning the said period as qualifying service. Hence, the said period has to be taken notionally deemed to be rectified; and as such, regularisation by the Government, enabling revision and disbursement of the revised and enhanced pensionary benefits and other legal entitlements to the petitioner.

4. The trib