The court affirmed that educational institutions may set stringent eligibility criteria for recruitment to maintain academic standards, and shortcomings in qualifications cannot be overlooked.

JUDGMENT

Asha Menon, J. (Oral)

CM APPL. 5793/2021

1. Exemption is allowed, subject to just exceptions.

2. The application stands disposed of.

W.P. (C) 1986/2021, CM APPL. 5792/2021

3. The present petition has been filed by a candidate in the recruitment for teachers by respondent No.2/Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) pursuant to the notification/advertisement dated 14.08.2018 issued by them. She is aggrieved by the dismissal of her O.A. by the Central Administrative Tribunal ('Tribunal' in short) vide its order dated 03.09.2020.

4. The petitioner having applied for the post of TGT (Mathematics) in pursuance of the aforesaid notification of respondent No.2/KVS, wrote the II-Tier exam and secured the 83rd position under the General Category. However when she appeared for the interview scheduled for 14.02.2019, the officials of respondent No.2/KVS did not allow her to proceed her to attend the interview on the ground that she did not meet the essential eligibility criteria as per the advertisement.

5. Aggrieved, she filed the O.A. 685/2019 before the Tribunal seeking direction to respondent No.2/KVS to consider her for appointment on the basis of the rank secured by her. The Tribunal vide the impugned order dated 03.09.2020 considered the qualifications as advertised and concluded as under:

"8. A perusal of the same discloses that the amount of clarity, which the respondents had, as regards the post. They did not leave any scope for either for interpretation or for equivalence. What is mentioned in the advertisement is a full fledged study for three years in Mathematics, along with two other subjects mainly in Physical Sciences. Admittedly the applicant did not study that course. She did B.Tech. It is not even demonstrated that the curriculum of the B.Tech comprises of three years regular study in Mathematics and in two of the five subjects mentioned in the advertisement. The occasional study of the Mathematics in one or two semesters that too, in the limited context of an Engineering Degree, can, by no stretch of imagination, be treated as a Bachelor Degree in Mathematics, nor it can lead to Bachelor Degree in Mathematics".

6. Aggrieved, the present writ petition has been filed.

7. Learned counsel for the petitioner Ms. Uma Devi has primarily contended that respondent No.2/ KVS had accepted her application form when she had filled in her educational qualification under the head of 'others' and having so accepted her application, had permitted her to write the II-Tier exam. Therefore, the respondent No.2/KVS could not now debar her from appearing in the interview and being considered for selection.

8. It is her further contention that the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) had itself relaxed the norms for admission to the B.Ed. course in the year 2015 permitting B.Tech graduates to pursue two years B.Ed. course. The learned counsel contended that once the NCTE had allowed the B.Tech graduates to obtain B.Ed. degree, respondent No.2/KVS had no discretion left in the matter and had to consider B.Tech graduates also for the TGT (Mathematics) post. She further argued that the Engineering graduates underwent the same curriculum in the B.Ed. course for Mathematics and Physical Science. Since respondent No.2/KVS had prescribed passing of the Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET) Paper-II in Mathematics and Science as necessary to apply for the TGT (Mathematics) posts in respondent No.2/KVS and the petitioner having acquired such eligibility, respondent No.2/KVS could not exclude her from consideration for the recruitment to the post of TGT (Mathematics).

9. It is on the basis of these arguments that the learned counsel for the petitioner submitte