The High Court of Karnataka has imposed a rider on the appointment of candidates selected to the posts of Group ‘A’ and ‘B’ Gazetted Probationers in the 2015 batch of recruitment made through the Karnataka Public Service Commission (KPSC).
It said the appointments would be subject to final order to be passed by the Karnataka State Administrative Tribunal based on the petitions filed by the unsuccessful candidates, who have questioned the legality of selection process.
Also, it directed the KPSC not to destroy any records or data, both in electronic or physical form, relating to selection process and to submit all the data before the Tribunal.
A Division Bench comprising Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Nataraj Sharma passed the order on a petition filed by Sudhanva Bhandolkar B.K. and 51 others.
The petitioners had approached the High Court questioning the February 3, 2020, order passed by the Tribunal, which had asked them to file fresh petition after collecting sufficient material to question the KPSC’s selection process as the petitioners had alleged tampering of digital records.
It was contended on behalf of the petitioners that the tribunal could have decided the matter as most of the materials was available before the tribunal and by summoning the remaining records from the the KPSC. While remanding the matter back to the tribunal, the Bench said that the tribunal will have to decide the petitions within 90 days.
The Bench also directed both the KPSC and the Tata Consultancy Services, which had done the evaluation, to produce the records to enable the tribunal to decide the matter on merits.
It is needless to mention that in case the document is not produced or suppressed, the tribunal shall be free to draw an adverse inference in the matter, the Bench said while making it clear that the tribunal would be free to proceed ahead based on the documents to be produced by the parties and the grounds raised on behalf of the parties.
