Karnataka HC upholds KHB’s new rule opening promotion to executive engineer posts even to diploma-holder AEEs

Published 3 August 2026 · india

The High Court of Karnataka has upheld the amendment made to Karnataka Housing Board’s (KHB) Rules creating a 25% quota for promotion of diploma-holder Assistant

The High Court of Karnataka has upheld the amendment made to Karnataka Housing Board’s (KHB) Rules creating a 25% quota for promotion of diploma-holder Assistant Executive Engineers (AEEs) to the Executive Engineer (EE) cadre by rejecting the challenge to the new rules by the undergraduate degree-holder AEEs. “The avowed object behind the amendment is neither obscure nor elusive. It is to alleviate the stagnation that had overtaken diploma-holder AEEs who, notwithstanding decades of blemishless service, found the doors of further advancement permanently closed,” the court said, while pointing out that stagnation in public service has never been viewed by constitutional courts as a desirable incident of administration.

Justice M. Nagaprasanna passed the order while dismissing petitions filed by Vijay Shankar Deshinge and other graduate AEEs of the KHB. The petitioners had questioned the legality of the KHB (Recruitment and Conditions of Service) Rules, 2022, which has changed the five-decade old practice of limiting diploma-holder engineers’ promotional journey at the post of AEE. The petitioners had claimed that no statutory organisation or government service permits diploma holders to be beyond the rank of AEE while contending that there was gross disparity in the new rules, as unequals were treated as equals.

Rejecting contentions of the petitioners, the court noted that the new rules create two promotion channels to EE posts with 75% of vacancies being reserved for degree-holder AEEs eligible after the mandatory three years’ service in the cadre, and 25% reserved for diploma-holder AEEs who become eligible only after completing five years in the cadre. “A careful reading of the amended rules dispels any notion that graduate and diploma-holder engineers have been indiscriminately merged into a single stream. The distinction is consciously preserved. Educational qualifications continue to operate as the basis of classification.

The period of qualifying service is separately prescribed. The quota itself is distinctly apportioned,” the court observed. The court stated that the amendment merely introduces “a carefully calibrated promotional avenue for diploma-holder AEEs with the avowed object of mitigating career stagnation. Such an exercise, far from being arbitrary, reflects a conscious balancing of competing service interests”. The court observed that the amendment “withstands scrutiny as it neither broods over palpable arbitrariness nor transgresses the mandate of Article 14.”