State of Karnataka, rep. by Commissioner, Transport and Road Safety v. Srinivasa B.N. & Anr. (with Juliet Christine A v. State of Karnataka & Ors. and six other connected writ petitions), W.P. No. 126 of 2025 and connected matters, decided on 06.10.2026 | Citation: 2026:KHC:55400-DB
Where a recruitment rule is ambiguous about the experience required, the ambiguity is resolved in favour of the candidates, and experience of at least one year can be counted by adding up work in different workshops that together handle all the prescribed types of vehicles. Authorities cannot insist on an impossible qualification, such as experience on petrol-engine heavy vehicles that have not existed for decades, and cannot reject candidates for lacking it, while accepting false certificates claiming it.
The Karnataka High Court has held that candidates selected for Motor Vehicle Inspector posts cannot be rejected because they lack experience repairing heavy petrol vehicles, since such vehicles have not existed in India for decades, and that their experience from different garages can be added together. The recruitment began in February 2016 for 150 posts. The rules required at least one year of work experience in a reputed automobile workshop that repairs light, heavy goods and heavy passenger vehicles with petrol and diesel engines. After a 2021 High Court ruling, the Karnataka Public Service Commission issued a revised final select list in October 2023, but the Transport Department refused appointment orders to several candidates on the basis of Deputy Commissioners’ reports. The grounds included that their certificates did not mention every class of vehicle, they were short of experience in one class, or physical checks of the workshop did not show supporting documents. The State challenged one tribunal order that had accepted combined experience from two garages, and other candidates challenged the rejection of their applications. Justices R. Devdas and Dr. K. Manmadha Rao dismissed the State’s petition and allowed the candidates’ petitions. They held that the rule is ambiguous and cannot mean one year in every class of vehicle, and relying on the Supreme Court’s Parvaiz Ahmad Parry ruling, the benefit of such ambiguity goes to the candidates. The State’s own lawyer admitted that heavy goods and passenger vehicles with petrol engines have not been made for many decades. The court said that certificates from KSRTC, BMTC and other State bodies claiming such experience were “a blatant lie”, and it was a “travesty of justice” to accept them while rejecting the candidates whose certificates truthfully did not claim such experience. Relying on the Supreme Court’s seven-judge Presidential Poll ruling on impossibility, it held that the Transport Commissioner cannot refuse appointment on this ground. It directed that appointment orders be issued, with seniority on par with those already appointed, to the candidates in the 2023 list, if their combined experience from workshops handling all three vehicle types is over a year. The department must issue the orders within two months, and the Deputy Commissioners must revisit workshops and submit fresh reports where physical verification was the problem.