BREAKING| CLAT-PG Test Ranking Can Be Used To Select NTPC Law Officers: Kerala High Court

The Kerala High Court on Monday held that the condition mandating applicants to clear CLAT for applying to the post of Assistant Law Officer in National Thermal Power Corporation Limited (NTPC) is lawful.

A Division Bench of Justice A.K Jayasankaran Nambiar and Justice Mohammed Nias C.P. thereby allowed the appeal preferred by NTPC against the decision of a Single Judge which held that such a condition was violative of Article 16 of the Constitution of India. Accordingly, the Single Judge decision has been set aside. 

"Guarantee for equality cannot imply that qualifications should be prescribed to make every one eligible without conceding the right to the employer to choose what he considers as the best qualification given the nature of the job to be undertaken."

The contention of the writ petitioner that an official notification should have been issued before the examination communicating that CLAT scores would be considered was also dismissed by the Court noting that the condition was already in the public domain and that it has been prevalant since 2016. 

The impugned decision of the Single Judge came in a plea moved by an aspirant to the post of Assistant Law Officer in NTPC and an LL.M student at CUSAT with a specialization in Intellectual Property Rights. She completed LLB with an average score of 70% and claims to have several academic accolades to her account, therefore eligible to apply for the post of Assistant Law Officer at NTPC.

When the matter came up for appeal, the Bench had earlier opined that the selection based on CLAT clearance is an established practice, pointing out that the previous recruitment to the NTPC in 2016 was also done through the same selection process, and that the petitioner ought to have known that.

The discrimination urged by the writ petitioner was that by confining the zone of consideration to only those who had appeared at the CLAT PG examinations, the NTPC had excluded those who could not appear at the said examinations and therefore discriminated against them in a matter of public employment.

The petitioner also argued that the insistence on appearing at the CLAT examinations is discriminatory since it targets those who are not desirous of pursuing their post-graduate legal studies in premier legal institutions for discriminatory treatment.

Regarding this contention, the Court observed: 

"We are at a loss to understand how the action of the NTPC can be seen as discriminatory. We are given to understand that the practice of insisting on an appearance at the CLAT PG examination, as a requirement for applying for the post of Law Officer is one that has been in vogue in many Central PSU's at least from 2016. That apart, the CLAT PG examination does not impose any restrictions as regards the law graduates who can appear for it. "

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta assisted by Advocates Adarsh Tripathi, Vikram Singh Baid and Ajitesh Garg appeared for the NTPC while the writ petitioners were represented by Advocate Maitreyi S. Hegde. 

Case Title: NTPC v. Aishwarya Mohan

Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (Ker) 375

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