'Can State Be Directed to Consider Degree Holders When Recruitment Rules for Govt Post Say Only Diploma Holders Eligible? SC Issues Notice

“Issue notice, returnable on Friday, April 14. The prayer for stay is declined. The official respondents shall be at liberty to proceed with the selection process subject to final outcome of special leave petition.”

At the centre of the controversy is the question of whether civil engineering degree holders would be eligible to apply for the post of junior civil engineer advertised by the water resources department of the Maharashtra government in 2019. After unsuccessfully challenging the eligibility criteria before the state administrative tribunal, 610 civil engineers approached the high court. In January of this year, a bench of Acting Chief Justice S.V. Gangapurwala and Justice Sandeep V. Marne dismissed their writ petition, observing, “Merely because a degree in civil engineering might [be] a higher qualification than a diploma, this court would not be in a position to interpret the provisions of recruitment rules and direct the state government to consider candidates who are not eligible as per the recruitment rules…We are therefore unable to hold that degree in civil engineering is a higher qualification than a diploma in the context of requirement under the recruitment rules.”

Challenging this verdict, the petitioners have now moved the top court. From a reading of the recruitment rules for the post of junior engineer and that of sectional engineer, a civil engineering degree is an equivalent qualification for recruitment, the petitioners have claimed. They have further alleged that the present recruitment advertisement prescribing the eligibility of only diploma courses as equivalent qualification is violative of the said recruitment rules.

The petitioners are represented by Advocates Siddharth Chapalgaonkar, Sangharsh Waghmare, Sneha Botwe, Bhagyesha Kurane, Abhiyudaya Vats, and Supreme Court Advocate-on-Record Pai Amit, while Advocates Siddharth Dharmadhikari, Bharat Bagla, Sourav Singh and Supreme Court AoR Aaditya Aniruddha Pande represent the respondents.

Case Title

Milind Shantilal Rathod & Ors. v. State of Maharashtra | Special Leave Petition (Civil) No. 3674 of 2023

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