Dama Seshadri Naidu, J. - (1.) THESE two writ petitions filed by the same petitioner, a workman, against the same set of respondents, the employer, proposed to be disposed of through a common order, since the second writ petition is only consequential in nature. The same set of learned counsel has advanced arguments on identical factual position in both the writ petitions. As such, for the felicity of adjudication, both the writ petitions are taken up together and are being disposed of by a common order. Shorn of extraneous particulars, the facts in brief are that the petitioner was initially appointed on 28.03.2009 in the respondent Corporation as a contract driver. Though he was appointed on a contract basis, the appointment was said to be against a substantive vacancy by way of filling up of backlog vacancy of scheduled tribe, to which the petitioner belongs.
(2.) IN 2009, when Kurnool town suffered unprecedented floods, the petitioner as a driver was assigned special duty as part of the rescue operations. The case of the petitioner is that at that time when there was a technical snag in the bus, the petitioner attempted to set it right. During the course of his efforts, the petitioner was severely injured in his right eye. Though the respondent Corporation referred him for proper medical treatment to the hospital of the Corporation, eventually given the gravity of the injury to his right eye sustained, the petitioner was medically invalidated through medical certificate dated 26.04.2010. The record reveals that questioning the medical invalidation, the petitioner is said to have filed an appeal before the Medical Board and later a review, but on both the occasions, the plea of the petitioner was turned down and the initial finding of the Medical Officers invalidating the petitioner on medical grounds for defective eye was affirmed at both the stages. Having applied for alternative employment, when the petitioner was waiting for a positive measure on the part of the respondent Corporation, through proceedings dated 25.06.2010, the services of the petitioner were regularised.
(3.) VENTILATING a grievance that despite regularisation of his services and, more particularly, when the petitioner was medically invalidated only owing to the fact that he had sustained injury during the course of employment, the petitioner approached this Court by filing W.P. No. 8924 of 2012 questioning the delay on the part of the respondent Corporation in providing alternative employment. On 17.09.2012, an interim direction was given in the said writ petition to the effect that the petitioner's case shall be considered for providing alternative employment. It is the grievance of the petitioner that instead of providing alternative employment in terms of the interim direction granted in W.P. No. 8924 of 2012, the respondent Corporation terminated the services of the petitioner through proceedings dated 05.10.2012. Once again aggrieved thereby, the petitioner filed W.P. No. 33800 of 2012 wherein yet again an interim direction was given on 30.10.2012 to the respondent to provide alternative employment in terms of the earlier interim order passed by this Court in W.P. No. 8924 of 2012. Predictably, as the respondent Corporation did not choose to implement the repeated directions of this Court, the petitioner was constrained to file a contempt case in C.C. No. 1372 of 2013. Under the pain of contempt, it appears, eventually the Corporation provided alternative employment to the petitioner as a Shramic through proceedings dated 26.02.2014.;