Misuse of reversion power and unequal treatment in public employment can invalidate service reversions and protect operator status.

A reversion order is unlawful when the appointing authority acts on an erroneous assumption about its power and uses that power for an extraneous purpose outside its lawful object. The Court also treated the reversal of service status as discriminatory where the affected employees lost the chance to continue as wireless operators while juniors and less meritorious persons were retained or appointed, making the action inconsistent with Articles 14 and 16. On the service-status question, employees who continued doing wireless operator work were entitled to be treated in that capacity for practical service purposes, with their allocation position left intact except for the quashed reversions.

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Issues: (i) whether the reversion orders were invalid as having been made for a collateral or extraneous purpose and in misuse of power; (ii) whether the reversion orders resulted in discrimination offending Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution; (iii) whether the respondents were entitled to be treated as wireless operators in the successor State.

Issue (i): Whether the reversion orders were invalid as having been made for a collateral or extraneous purpose and in misuse of power.

Analysis: Section 115(2) of the State Reorganisation Act, 1956 vested the power of provisional and final allotment in the Central Government, and until such allotment the employees continued to serve the parent State. The reversion orders were passed by the former State of Bombay on an erroneous assumption that it could pre-empt the needs of the successor State and reduce the number of operators accordingly. That assumption lay outside the lawful scope of the power of reversion. A power exercised on a mistaken footing as to its object and ambit amounts to misuse of power and use for a collateral or legally extraneous purpose.

Conclusion: The reversion orders were vitiated as an unlawful exercise of power for an extraneous purpose.

Issue (ii): Whether the reversion orders resulted in discrimination offending Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution.

Analysis: The record showed that, but for the impugned reversions, the respondents could have continued as wireless operators, whereas vacancies were later filled by juniors and less meritorious persons. The subsequent appointments in Bombay were relevant because they demonstrated the adverse effect of the reversions and the preferential treatment accorded to juniors. Denial of the respondents' chance to continue in the post, while juniors secured those posts, amounted to unjustifiable discrimination and unequal treatment in public employment.

Conclusion: The reversion orders violated Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution.

Issue (iii): Whether the respondents were entitled to be treated as wireless operators in the successor State.

Analysis: The respondents continued to perform wireless operator work in Mysore throughout the relevant period, and that factual position was not controverted. Since the High Court had quashed only the reversion orders and left the allotment intact, the proper course was to recognise them as wireless operators in substance and for all practical service purposes.

Conclusion: The respondents were entitled to be treated as wireless operators and deemed to have been allocated in that capacity.

Final Conclusion: The challenge to the reversion orders failed, and the respondents retained the benefit of the High Court's relief restoring their status as wireless operators.

Ratio Decidendi: Administrative power is invalid when exercised outside its lawful object or on an erroneous assumption that it may be used to serve an extraneous purpose, and a resulting denial of equal treatment to juniors and less meritorious persons can amount to unconstitutional discrimination.

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