The employer has the final authority to determine eligibility criteria for employment, and experience from a non-IPP entity cannot be considered valid for the purpose of recruitment.

JUDGMENT :

(Per : Prafulla S. Khubalkar, J.)

1. Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith. By consent of the respective parties, the petitions are taken up for final hearing.

2. These petitions, under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, deal with common grievance of the petitioners who have impugned the decision of respondent Nos.2/MAHAGENCO and 3/MSEDCL, declaring each of them ineligible for the posts of ‘Additional Executive Engineer’ and ‘Deputy Executive Engineer’, on account of absence of requisite experience of working at ‘Independent Power Producer’ (IPP). Since the grievance of these petitioners is identical raising similar challenge against respondent Nos.2 and 3, all these three petitions are heard and decided together.

3. The factual set up is succinctly put herewith. The Maharashtra State Power Generation Company Limited (MAHAGENCO) the respondents no.2 published an advertisementNo.09/2022, dated 09/10/2022 inviting applications for the posts of ‘Executive Engineer’, ‘Additional Executive Engineer’ and ‘Deputy Executive Engineer’. The advertisement contained details about the eligibility including the qualifications and experience required for the respective posts. In response to the advertisement, the petitioners applied for the respective posts of ‘Additional Executive Engineer’ and ‘Deputy Executive Engineer’ and submitted their experience certificates of having worked in ‘M/s Gangakhed Sugar and Energy Limited’, which they claimed to be an IPP i.e. ‘Independent Power Producer’. The petitioners appeared for the written examination and having stood qualified, their names were shortlisted for the stage of Documents Verification, as per the list published on 05/04/2023.

4. On 28/10/2023, after the documents verification, a list of ineligible candidates was published which included the names of the petitioners being held ineligible due to absence of experience certificate of IPP as required by the advertisement. On being declared ineligible, the petitioners submitted representations to the respondents pointing out that Gangakhed Sugar and Energy Ltd. is an IPP and therefore, requested that their experience need to be counted for deciding their eligibility. Since there was no decision on their representation and their grievance remained unredressed, they filed the instant petitions challenging the decision declaring them ineligible and seeking a direction to consider them for appointment to the posts of ‘Additional Executive Engineer’ and ‘Deputy Executive Engineer’ as per their applications.

5. In response to the petitions, the respondent nos.2 and 3 filed reply dated 27/03/2024 taking a specific stand that the petitioners have been declared as ineligible on the basis of assessment and scrutiny of documents by an Expert Committee of the respondents, comprising of two Executive Engineers (Technical Experts) and DGM-HR (HR-Experts), which was constituted for deciding the eligibility for both the posts. The respondents opposed the petition by contending that the expert committee had scrutinized the documents of the petitioners in the light of pre-requisites as per the advertisement and since the petitioners do not have experience of working in IPP, they are rightly declared ineligible. The respondents have categorically stated that the experience of Gangakhed Sugar and Energy Ltd. cannot be considered as requisite experience as per the advertisement since Gangakhed Sugar and Energy Ltd. is primarily a sugar factory with major business of production of sugar fromsugarcane and it is a Co-generation Power Producer which means the primary reason for operating the power plant is to ensure that the heat and energy requirement for producing sugar. It is stated that, only surplus energy generated is sold to the grid and as such, Gangakhed Sugar and Energy Ltd. cannot be termed as an ‘Independent Power Producer’ (IPP) as the power generation work is subsidiary in sugar production. It is also stated that the representations submitted