Karnataka HC raps KMF for reassigning job applicant to general category for submitting illegible doc
Bengaluru (PTI): The High Court of Karnataka has rapped the Karnataka Co-operative Milk Producers Federation (KMF) for shunting a reserved category candidate to general category just because the social status certificate he had uploaded online along with the job application was unclear.
It held that the principle of natural justice mandated that the State agency should have asked the candidate to submit a more legible certificate.
In their recent judgment, a division bench of Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice Krishna S Dixit said, "What we fail to understand is, what heavens would have fallen down had the Federation asked the Appellant to web-host a legible certificate."
The KMF had rejected the certificate uploaded by Devaraj PR on the ground that it was not legible and consigned him to the General Category while he was seeking a job under the reserved category.
He had approached a single judge bench which rejected his petition on February 14, 2023. He then filed an appeal which was allowed by the Division Bench.
The Bench said that KMF was a State entity as per Article 12 of the Constitution and should be fair in its dealings.
"Any act of Article 12 Entity that is not animated with the elements of fairness runs the risk of invalidation at the hands of Writ Court, ours being a Welfare State as constitutionally Ordained. The action of the Federation in shunting the Appellant to the General Category merely because the Certificate of Social Status which he had uploaded was not clearly visible or that it was illegible, is absolutely unfair, to say the least," the Bench said.
The HC said that the principle of natural justice required KMF to intimate the candidate to upload a legible certificate.
"A simple intimation to the candidate of the so called defect, would have been made the impugned action compliant with the principles of natural justice. No explanation is offered for not undertaking such an innocuous exercise," it said.
The Bench further said that when the recruiting agency is an instrumentality of the State under Article 12, "the persons in the fray have a fundamental right to have their candidature considered vide Article 16 of the Constitution."
Allowing the appeal and granting the KMF two weeks to consider Devaraj's application along with the original Caste Certificate within two weeks, it noted, "If the error is attributable to such an agency, it cannot ordinarily be permitted to argue the difficulty of undertaking its rectification, the error being plainly curable.
Otherwise, illegalities in the recruitment process despite challenges would go with impunity and the right thinking people in the society will not approve it."
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Centre approves Rs 1,115 crore to states for disaster mitigation, capacity-building projects
New Delhi (PTI): A high-level committee, headed by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, has approved Rs 1,000 crore for various disaster mitigation and capacity-building projects in 15 states.
The committee also approved another project for training and capacity building of civil defence volunteers in all states and Union territories at a total outlay of Rs 115.67 crore, according to an official statement.
According to an official statement, a sum of Rs 139 crore each was approved for Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, Rs 100 crore for Maharashtra, Rs 72 crore each for Karnataka and Kerala, Rs 50 crore each for Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, and Rs 378 crore for the eight Northeastern states -- Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, and Tripura.
The committee, comprising Union ministers for finance and agriculture and the vice chairman of the NITI Aayog as members, considered the proposal to mitigate landslide risk in 15 states for funding from the National Disaster Mitigation Fund (NDMF).
Another proposal for training and capacity building of civil defence volunteers in all states and UT's under-preparedness and capacity building from the funding window of the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) was also considered, it said.
Earlier, the committee approved Urban Flood Risk Mitigation Projects in seven cities at a total outlay of Rs 3075.65 crore and Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) risk management projects in four states at a total outlay of Rs 150 crore from the NDMF.
To fulfil Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of disaster resilient India, the Ministry of Home Affairs under the guidance of Shah has taken several initiatives to ensure effective management of disasters in the country, the statement said.
Several steps have been taken to prevent any extensive loss of life and property during disasters by strengthening the disaster risk reduction system in India, it said.
Under the Modi government, more than Rs 21,476 crore has already been released to the states during this year. This includes Rs 14,878.40 crore from the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) to 26 states, Rs 4,637.66 crore from the NDRF to 15 states, Rs 1,385.45 crore from the State Disaster Mitigation Fund (SDMF) to 11 states and Rs 574.93 crore from NDMF to six states.
