Aishwarya Rathore-
Published on: August 22, 2021, at 12:36 IST
Hon’ble Supreme Court stated that having a “equivalent qualification” at the time of application will be equally sufficient as having the “requisite qualification” at the time of notification the job vacany.
A Division Bench of Justices L. Nageswara Rao and Aniruddha Bose stated, “The principle of service jurisprudence that a candidate must possess the requisite qualification for a post on the date of issue of employment notification cannot be applied in the appellants’ cases, as in our view, they possessed equivalent qualifications when they applied for the posts.”
Appeals were filed by two applicants who applied for the posts of High School Assistants in Kerela. The Court had to decide whether their Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) degrees were in subjects that met the eligibility criteria for the job advertised by the State Public Service Commission in 2012.
A B.Ed degree in Natural Sciences was necessary for the job.
The appellants’ were both B.Ed graduates in Biological Science. Their degrees were deemed “equivalent” to a Natural Sciences degree from a University in Kerala . They were both shortlisted and allowed to participate in the job interview.
Their applications, however, were put on hold after an objection was filed claiming that they were not competent in the subject for which the job was notified.
The Public Service Commission argued that the Government orders in service matters cannot be applied retrospectively. It said that the the two were unqualified at the time of job application in 2012.
Justice Bose observed, “The Government Orders (GOs) only confirmed the equivalency of their B.Ed. degrees. In my opinion, they shall be deemed to have had the equivalent qualification on the relevant date [of the job notification]. As we have held that the respective GOs only clarified or confirmed an existing status of certain Educational Qualifications.”