Professional experience required for librarian posts must involve duties analogous to those of a librarian; working as Multi Tasking Staff does not qualify as such experience.

Headnote:(A) Recruitment Notice - Educational and Other Qualification Required - The petitioner challenged the rejection of his candidature for Librarian post on grounds of insufficient professional experience - The Tribunal held that duties of Multi Tasking Staff in a library do not equate to requisite Librarian experience - Petitioner contended that his experience should be considered sufficient as he worked in a library. (Paras 5-6)

(B) Professional Experience - Requirement for professional experience in a library entails duties analogous to those of a Librarian - The Court affirmed that performing casual duties does not satisfy the condition for professional experience. (Paras 13-16)

Facts of the case:
The petitioner sought employment for Librarian position after scoring 115.50 marks but was rejected for lacking necessary experience, despite his work as Multi Tasking Staff in a library environment.

Findings of Court:
The Tribunal's decision that the petitioner does not possess requisite professional experience required for the Librarian post was upheld.

Issues: The Court addressed whether an MTS in a library acquires professional experience for the Librarian post and the merit of relaxation of qualification for SC/ST categories.

Ratio Decidendi: The determination of professional experience is contingent upon the nature of duties performed; mere maintenance tasks do not suffice.

Result: Petition dismissed.

Table of Content
1. petitioner's challenge to employment rejection (Para 1 , 2 , 3 , 4)
2. claim of relevant professional experience (Para 5 , 6)
3. contention on qualifications and relaxation (Para 7 , 8 , 9)
4. understanding of professional experience in library context (Para 10 , 11 , 12 , 13)
5. clarification on casual duties vs professional experience (Para 14 , 15 , 16 , 18 , 19)
6. assessment of qualification and comparison with selected candidate (Para 20 , 22 , 23 , 24)
7. dismissal of the petition (Para 25)

JUDGMENT

Sanjeev Sachdeva, J. (ORAL)

1. Petitioner impugns order dated 19.06.2020, whereby the Original Application (`OA') filed by the petitioner has been dismissed by the Tribunal.

2. Petitioner had challenged the rejection notice dated 02.03.2020 whereby, the respondent No.1 had rejected the application of the petitioner for being employed for the Post Code 10/17.

3. Petitioner had applied against Advertisement No. 1/2017 for the post of Librarian (Post Code No. 10/17). Applications were invited online and as per the Recruitment Notice, the educational and other qualification required are as under:

Educational and Other Qualification Required For Direct Recruits

Essential: (i) Bachelor's degree in library science or library and information science of a recognized university/institute.
(ii) Two years professional experience in a library under Central/state government/autonomous or statutory organization/psu/university or recognized research or educational institution.
desirable: Diploma in Computer Application from a recognized university or institute.
Note 1: Qualifications are relaxable at the discretion of the competent authority for reasons to be recorded in writing, in case of candidates otherwise well qualified.
Note 2: The qualification regarding experience is relaxable at the discretion of the competent authority, for reasons to be recorded in writing, in case of candidates belonging to scheduled castes or scheduled tribes, if at any stage of slection the competent authority is of the opinion that sufficient number of candidates from these communities possessing the requisite experience are not likely to be available to fill up the posts reserved for them.

4. Petitioner appeared in the written examination and secured 115.50 marks and was shortlisted. However, later on, his candidature was rejected on the ground that he did not possess the requisite essential experience, consequent to which, subject OA was filed.

5. The case of the petitioner is that he has worked as a Multi Tasking Staff (MTS) in the Library of the Delhi Judicial Academy from 14.06.2012 to 29.10.2014 and contends that the experience gained there satisfies the requirement of the advertisement.

6. The Tribunal has held that working as a Multi Tasking Staff in a library cannot give the petitioner requisite experience as a Librarian, as the duties assigned to an MTS and that to the Librarian are very different and cannot be compared. Consequently, the OA was dismissed.

7. Before us also, the contention of learned counsel for the petitioner is that petitioner has the requisite professional experience as he has worked as a MTS in the Library of Delhi Judicial Academy and one of the duties performed by him as a MTS was physical verification and maintenance of books/periodical newspaper their issue/return and their processing for assignment of Accession No. etc.

8. It is further contended that since petitioner has performed the duties in the library, he has sufficient professional experience in the library and as such, was duly qualified.

9. Further, it is contended that petitioner belongs to a Scheduled Caste and as such, the required qualification was relaxable at the discretion of the Competent Authority and such discretion should have been exercised in favour of the petitioner, as petitioner holds more educational qualification than the selected candidate.

10. We may notice that there is no specific appointment of an MTS by the