The court affirmed that reducing educational assistance for construction workers' children erodes legitimate expectations and violates welfare statutes, necessitating adherence to prior benefits established under the law.

CAV ORDER

Petitioners 1 to 5 are before this Court calling in question the Notification dated 30-10-2023 and consequently to allow the application dated 13-08-2021 of 2021 Notification to few of the petitioners and have also sought several other incidental prayers.

2. Before embarking upon consideration of the issue on its merits, I deem it appropriate to notice the protagonists in the petition. The 1^st petitioner is the daughter of the 2^nd petitioner who is a registered construction worker and the 3^rd petitioner is the daughter of the 4^th petitioner, again a registered construction worker. The 5^th petitioner is the Karnataka State Building and other Workers Federation (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Federation’ for short)

3. Facts adumbrated are as follows:

The 1^st petitioner is a student of Master of Business Administration enrolled in Apoorva Institute of Management Studies and currently is in her 3^rd semester. The 3^rd petitioner is a student in Law enrolled in Visveswarapura College of Law and is in her third semester of law. Both the aforesaid petitioners are the children of registered construction workers. The children of construction workers were, in terms of the notification of the year 2021, entitled to certain amount of educational assistance at the rate of ₹35,000/- per semester. This notification comes to be amended and the impugned notification comes to be issued on 30-10-2023 reducing the amount of assistance for educational purposes to 10,000/- contrary to what was earlier prevailing at ₹30,000/- and ₹35,000/- as the case would be, be it for graduation or post-graduation. Petitioners 1 and 3, daughters of petitioners 2 and 4 applied for grant of educational assistance as was prevailing earlier. This comes to be turned down on the strength of the impugned notification dated 30-10-2023. It is this action, on the strength of the aforesaid notification of the State, that has driven the petitioners to this Court in the subject petition.

4. The respondents are, the State through the office of the Commissioner of Labour, the 1^st respondent; the Karnataka Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Board’ for short), the 2^nd respondent and the Ministry of Labour, State of Karnataka, the 3^rd respondent.

5. Heard Sri Aditya Chatterjee, learned counsel appearing for the petitioners, Smt. Prathima Honnapura, learned Additional Advocate General appearing for respondents 1 and 3 and Sri M.R.C.Ravi, learned senior counsel appearing for respondent No.2.

6. The learned counsel appearing for the petitioners would vehemently contend that the action of the respondents is in violation of scheme of the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Act’ for short). The impugned notification cannot have retrospective application after the children got into education and legitimate expectation is shattered in the case at hand is his submission. The defence of the Board as projected by the learned senior counsel, as non-availability of fund, is erroneous and contrary to the record. He would contend that the Board is over-spending on administrative expenditure, and under- spending on welfare scheme. He would further contend that deposit of welfare funds that come into the coffers of the Board is ₹6700/- crores and the Board has invested it in fixed deposits in violation of orders of the Apex Court. He would seek to place reliance upon severa