Summary
The Supreme Court restored the appointments of Junior Engineers (Electrical) in Lakshadweep who held a Diploma in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, where the rules and advertisement prescribed a Diploma in Electrical Engineering. The employer had obtained a clarification that the two diplomas were equivalent and accepted them; equivalence is for the employer, and the CAT and High Court erred in taking a technical view based only on nomenclature.
Issues
- Whether candidates holding a Diploma in Electrical and Electronics Engineering were qualified for the post of Junior Engineer (Electrical) for which the recruitment rules and advertisement prescribed a Diploma in Electrical Engineering.
- To what extent courts may review a recruiting authority's decision treating a qualification as equivalent to the prescribed one.
Provisions considered
- Schedule, Column 8 (qualifications for direct recruits to the post of Junior Engineer), Lakshadweep Electricity Department (Group 'C' and 'D' Technical Posts) Recruitment Rules, 2002The Schedule requires a Degree in Electrical Engineering, or a Diploma in Electrical Engineering with two years' specified experience. The Court read the advertisement reproducing this requirement in light of the administration's 2003 clarification treating the Electrical and Electronics diploma as equivalent. (¶¶ 13, 16, 17)
Held
- Since the recruiting authority had, before issuing the advertisement, sought and accepted a clarification from the Kerala Directorate of Technical Education that the Diploma in Electrical and Electronics Engineering was equivalent to the Diploma in Electrical Engineering, and maintained that stand before the CAT and the High Court, there was no reason to deny that equivalence for the advertisement; the CAT and the High Court ignored this assessment. (¶¶ 14, 15, 16, 17)
- In cases of disputed equivalence, it is the appointing authority that decides whether a candidate has what the post requires; where the employer has not objected and there is no apparent or glaring difference in qualifications, courts should not set aside appointments made after due consideration (applying Anand Yadav, Mukul Kumar Tyagi, Sandeep Shriram Warade and Uzair Imran). (¶¶ 18, 19, 20, 21)
- The burden of showing that the recruiting authority accepted the qualifications illegally or arbitrarily lay on the unsuccessful candidates who challenged the selection; a mere difference in the names of the diplomas, without showing any difference in teaching, duration, curriculum or pedagogy, does not discharge it. (¶ 22)
- Recruitment conditions such as prescribed qualifications are to be construed reasonably, and too technical a view should not defeat their intent; the High Court erred in taking a technical view and setting aside the appointments when the employer had accepted the diplomas. (¶¶ 22, 23)
Result
Appeals by the appointed candidates allowed; the orders of the CAT and the High Court's judgment dated 20.11.2014 set aside.