Selected candidates cannot be kept out for want of petrol-engine driving experience

A Division Bench of Justices R Devdas and K Manmadha Rao quashed six Tribunal orders and directed the Transport Commissioner to issue appointment orders within two months.

Candidates whose names appear on the Transport Department's revised final select list of October 2023 must be appointed, and cannot be shut out on the ground that their driving experience did not extend to heavy goods and heavy passenger vehicles with petrol engines. A Division Bench of Justice R Devdas and Dr. Justice K. Manmadha Rao, deciding eight connected writ petitions arising from the Karnataka State Administrative Tribunal, quashed six Tribunal orders, dismissed the State's own petition, and fixed a two-month deadline for the appointment orders to issue. Those appointed are to get seniority on par with candidates already appointed from the same list.

Eight petitions from one select list

The petitions were heard together: W.P. No. 126 of 2025, filed by the State of Karnataka through the Commissioner, Transport and Road Safety, Department of Transport, and W.P. Nos. 5483 of 2025, 5701 of 2025, 16415 of 2025, 25888 of 2025, 27642 of 2025, 4958 of 2026 and 21767 of 2026, all marked as service matters arising from the Tribunal. Sri Reuben Jacob, Additional Advocate General, with Sri K. R. Rajendra, Additional Government Advocate, appeared for the State. The Secretary of the Karnataka Public Service Commission was among the respondents.

The recruitment was run through the Karnataka Public Service Commission, whose Secretary was among the respondents, for posts in the Transport Department. The candidate in the State's own petition is a man of about 36 from Bagepalli taluk in Chikkaballapura district, which gives the shape of the cohort: applicants from across the State who had cleared selection and were then held up on a question about what they had driven.

The common thread is the Revised Final Select List dated 26 October 2023. Appointments had followed from that list for some candidates, while others found their candidature rejected, and the Tribunal's orders on those rejections went both ways — which is why the State is a petitioner in one case and a respondent in the rest.

The experience objection

The ground on which candidatures were rejected was the absence of experience in heavy goods vehicles and heavy passenger vehicles fitted with petrol engines. The Bench held that where a candidate has experience across all three types of vehicles and the combined experience is more than one year, that is enough. Appointment orders are equally to issue to candidates who fulfil every other requirement and fall short only on experience in heavy goods and heavy passenger vehicles with petrol engines.

Where the garage could not be found

A separate set of cases turned on verification rather than experience. In some, appointment orders had been withheld because physical verification of the garage or workshop did not disclose the existence of supporting documents.

For these the Bench followed the course it had taken on 29 September 2026 in W.P. No. 1232 of 2025, where the concerned Deputy Commissioner had been directed to revisit the garage or workshop and ascertain the true facts; on re-verification the Deputy Commissioner and his team submitted a fresh report, and the petition was disposed of with a direction to the Commissioner, Transport Department, to reconsider that report and proceed in accordance with law. In all cases requiring fresh verification, the Bench directed, the concerned Deputy Commissioners should revisit the garage or workshop, ascertain the true facts and submit fresh reports to the Commissioner, who must then reconsider those candidates' cases.

Order

W.P. No. 126 of 2025, filed by the State through the Commissioner, Transport Department, was dismissed.

W.P. Nos. 5483 of 2025, 5701 of 2025, 16415 of 2025, 27642 of 2025, 4958 of 2026 and 21767 of 2026 were allowed. These were the cases where candidature had been rejected for want of experience in heavy goods and heavy passenger vehicles with petrol engines, and the Tribunal's orders in Applications Nos. 2863 of 2024, 1466 of 2024, 1773 of 2024, 1783 of 2024, 3132 of 2024 and 1785 of 2024 were quashed and set aside. Where the names of such candidates are found in the Revised Final Select List of 26 October 2023, the Commissioner, Transport Department, is to issue appointment orders, and those candidates are entitled to all benefits including seniority on par with the candidates appointed pursuant to that list, in accordance with law.

W.P. No. 25888 of 2025 was also allowed and the Tribunal's order in Application No. 3837 of 2024 quashed and set aside. Since that candidate has more than a year's experience in all three types of vehicles even on the Deputy Commissioner's own report, and his name is on the Revised Final Select List, the Commissioner is to proceed to issue his appointment order.

All appointment orders are to be issued as expeditiously as possible and in any event within two months of receipt of a certified copy of the order. Pending interlocutory applications stood disposed of.