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The Secretary to Government, Department of Health and Family Welfare v. K.C. Devaki

Civil Appeal · 2025 INSC 389Decided 25 Mar 2025
C.A. No.-004356-004356 - 2025
Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha · Justice Manoj Misra. This

Background

The respondent, appointed a Staff Nurse in Karnataka in 1979, requested and was granted a cadre change to First Division Assistant in 1989 on medical grounds after a government medical board found her unfit to continue as a nurse; she expressly consented in writing to take seniority below the last-placed employee in the new post. When the State finalised a seniority list in 2007 fixing her seniority from 1989, she challenged it before the Karnataka Administrative Tribunal, claiming her seniority should instead run from her original 1979 appointment. The Tribunal and the Karnataka High Court both ruled in her favour, prompting the State's appeal to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Court examined Rule 16 of the Karnataka Civil Services (General Recruitment) Rules, 1977 and Rule 6 of the Karnataka Government Servants (Seniority) Rules, 1957, drawing a sharp distinction between a transfer made in "public interest" (which preserves an employee's existing seniority) and a transfer made "at the employee's own request" (which places the employee below all existing officers in the new cadre). It held that a cadre change granted on medical grounds, at the employee's own request and with her written consent to take junior-most seniority, cannot be treated as a transfer in the public interest merely because a medical board's report triggered it. Finding that the High Court's precedent (K. Seetharamulu) had wrongly blurred this distinction and had overlooked a more directly applicable Karnataka High Court ruling (M.K. Jagadeesh) on near-identical facts, the Supreme Court set aside the High Court's judgment and restored the 2007 seniority list fixing her seniority from 19 April 1989.

Lesson Learnt

A government employee who voluntarily seeks a transfer or cadre change, even for medical reasons, and accepts junior-most seniority as a condition of that transfer cannot later claim seniority from their original date of appointment; only transfers made by the government for administrative/public-interest reasons carry forward an employee's existing seniority.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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