Courts Should Avoid Interference When Appointing Authority Has Accepted Equivalence Of Qualifications: Supreme Court

“In circumstances where the appointing authority has not objected to the qualifications of the appellants and there is no apparent or glaring difference in the qualifications, we see no reason for courts to interfere and set-aside the appointments made after due consideration.,” observed P.S. Narasimha and Manoj Misra.

Reliance was placed on the recent decision in Union of India v Uzair Imran, wherein the Court had held:

“Normally, it is not the function of the court to determine equivalence of two qualifications and/or to scrutinise a particular certificate and say, on the basis of its appreciation thereof, that the holder thereof satisfies the eligibility criteria and, thus, is qualified for appointment.”

Essentially, in the present case, the Department of Electricity, Lakshadweep, had issued an advertisement for recruitment to the post of Junior Engineer. The required qualification included a Diploma in Electrical Engineering from a recognized institution with two years of experience. Now, the appellants were Diploma-holders in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, whereas the respondents hold a Diploma in Electrical Engineering.

The dispute started when the respondents' names were not included on the Select List. Following this, they filed an application before the Central Administrative Tribunal. They argued that the appellants held a degree other than the one specified in the advertisement, thus, they were not qualified to be appointed to the post. The Tribunal allowed the application and the same was affirmed by the High Court. Thus, the appellants approached the Supreme Court.

At the outset, the Court perused the Lakshadweep Electricity Department Recruitment Rules, 2002 and the educational qualifications therein. The Court pointed out that after the introduction of these rules, a clarification was sought from the Director, Technical Education, Kerala. It was regarding the equivalence of the Diploma in Electrical and Electronics Engineering with the Diploma in Electrical Engineering. As per the clarification, both the qualifications were treated as equivalent. Pursuant to this, the aforementioned advertisement was issued in 2006.

“Given that the recruiting authority had sought a clarification on whether a Diploma in Electrical and Electronics Engineering is equivalent to a Diploma in Electrical Engineering and accepted a clarification to the effect, we do not see any reason in denying such an equivalence for the purposes of the advertisement.,” the Court added.

Elaborating, the Court said that the recruiting authority had scrutinised the qualifications. Further, the respondents did not provide enough material as to why such equivalence should be denied.

“The burden to show that the recruiting authority accepted the qualifications of the appellants illegally or arbitrarily was on the respondents who had approached the CAT by filing OAs. There is nothing on record to show that they had adduced any convincing material evidence to prove that the qualifications prescribed are very different from the qualifications possessed by the appellants… The entire case of the respondents is based on the difference in nomenclatures of the two diplomas which stops there and has nothing to do with the core substance of the courses, including teaching, duration, curriculum or the pedagogy.”

Reliance was also placed on Uma Shankar Sharma v. Union of India, (1980) 3 SCC 202., to highlight that the terms and conditions of service should be interpreted reasonably, while not resorting to a technical view.

In view of this, the Court concluded that it was not appropriate for the High Court to take a technical view and set aside the appointments. While holding that the impugned judgments are not sustainable, the Court set aside the same.

Case Name: Sajid Khan vs L Rahmathullah., CIVIL APPEAL NO. 17308 OF 2017

Citation : 2025 LiveLaw (SC) 237

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