The High Court of Karnataka
The High Court of Karnataka has quashed the State government’s order of transferring Keshav Abbayya, brother of Hubballi-Dharwad East MLA Prasad Abbayya, to Karnataka Medical College and Research Institute (KMCRI), Hubballi, permanently from Gadag Institute of Medical Sciences (GIMS), Gadag, based on a letter rewritten by his MLA-brother to Medical Education Minister Sharan Prakash Patil.
The court also quashed appointment of Dr. Keshav as Head of the Department (HoD) of Dentistry as well the senior list, which treated him as the senior-most professor in the dentistry department.
Justice M. Nagaprasanna passed the order while allowing a petition filed by Suneel G. Patil who was the senior-most faculty in the KMCRI’s department of dentistry.
Blatant violation
“The permanent placement of Dr. Keshav as professor of KMCRI being in blatant violation of binding statutory guidelines and indelibly tainted by political influence, cannot be sustained in law,” the court said.
When the petitioner was statutorily entitled for promotion, “importing an outsider into the lone available post in the department, effectively divested the petitioner of both his seniority, a statutory right, and his legitimate consideration of promotion, a fundamental right,” the court observed, while pointing out that posting of transfer of Dr. Keshav to KMCRI is contrary to the norms of the institute as well as the National Medical Commission.
“The petitioner having already completed requisite qualifying service as early as at the time when the new post of Professor in the Department of Dentistry was created, was fully eligible and available for promotion. Yet, Dr. Keshav, whose fraternal relationship with the sitting Member of the Legislative Assembly, representing Hubballi, appears to have been ushered into KMCRI through the channels of influence, notwithstanding the oppositions raised by those affected,” the court observed. The court also noted that KMCRI is situated in the constituency represented by Dr. Keshav’s MLA-brother.
The court also said that Dr. Keshav could not have been treated as the senior-most professor in the department as his initial entry into the KMCRI from GIMC was on his voluntary request citing mother’s ill-health as the norms makes it clear that persons inducted to KCMRI from other institutes on voluntary request will have to be placed at the bottom of the senior list.
Creation of post
Meanwhile, the court also found that government created a post of professor in dentistry department to accommodate Dr. Keshav by asking the KMCRI to abolish a post of professor in another department without the approval from the NMC but, in reality, no post of professor was abolished.
The government though empowered to create or abolish post, must exercise such authority within the confines of fairness and non-arbitrariness as Article 14 of the Constitution of India stands as a constitutional sentinel prohibiting whimsical actions or favouritism by the State, the court pointed out.
The court declared that the petitioner is entitled to all consequential benefits that would flow from the quashing of the order of transfer of Dr. Keshav to KMCRI.
Published – December 16, 2025 08:45 pm IST
