( 1 ) SPECIAL leave granted.

( 2 ) THE appellant Sivamoorthy acquired a degree in MA in Criminology and Phd for his thesis on "spatial Pattern of Crimes and Criminal Behaviour in Madras City: A Criminal Geographical Study". He was selected as a reader in Criminology by a Selection Board comprising a retired Judge of the High Court of Madras, Vice-Chancellor of Rajasthan University, a professor of Criminology, New Delhi, Professor of Criminology, Varanasi and the Director General of Police, Madras. The Vice-Chancellor of the university of Madras was the ex officio Chairman of the aforesaid Selection board. It appears that his appointment was challenged at the instance of one t. A. Chidambaram, a student who desired to do MA with Criminology. He challenged his appointment on the ground that he did not possess the required qualification in the subject of Criminology to be appointed as reader in Criminology in the University of Madras.

( 3 ) THE qualifications prescribed by the University for the post in question at the relevant point of time were as under:1. a first or second class postgraduate degree in the subject or related subject;2. Phd degree in the subject with not less than 5 years of teaching and research experience; and 5. research in delinquency at the doctoral level. In addition thereto, knowledge of Tamil was considered desirable.

( 4 ) THE appointment of the appellant was challenged mainly on the ground that he was not a Phd in the subject, did not have the requisite teaching and research experience in that subject and is not shown to have done any research in delinquency at the doctoral level. The High Court held against the appellant on all the three counts and hence the appeals by special leave.

( 5 ) SO far as the first requirement is concerned there is no difficulty because he had the qualification of MA in Criminology besides MSc in geography. Therefore, he had the postgraduate degree in the subject of criminology. It was not contended that the said postgraduation was not in the first or second class. So far as the doctorate is concerned, as stated above, it was for the thesis on Spatial Pattern of Crimes and Criminal Behaviour in madras City: A Criminal Geographical Study. This would clearly show that the doctorate was in the subject of Criminology and this also becomes evident from his biodata which was supplied to the University which shows that he had taught Criminology in the MA Class for a period of one year and six months and had research experience from 1981 to 1986 since he had contributed papers in the Indian Journal on Criminology year after year. It is further seen from the biodata that besides contributing papers he had coedited three books between 1983 and 1985 on subjects related to Crimes and criminology. Thus, he had the experience of teaching Criminology in the ma Class for one-and-a-half years and also research experience from 1981 to 1986. Of course, his appointment was in 1985 but as stated earlier between 1983 and 1985 also he had coedited as many as three books. He had also contributed papers on related subjects of Criminology at seminars and conferences at the national levels. It would, therefore, seem that he answered the second requirement of the qualifications for appointment. It was however, said that he did not have the 3rd requirement of research in delinquency but that submission seems to overlook the fact that he had examined the crime pattern and the criminal behaviour pattern in the city of Madras which would include the criminal behaviour pattern of delinquents as well. There is no reason to believe that the behavioural pattern of the delinquent in the field of crime was excluded in the research undertaken by him from time to time. We are, therefore, of the opinion that taking an overall view of his academic as well as research background and having regard to the fact that a high-level selection Committee with experience from the field of Criminology had evaluated his backgro