IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Date of Decision :29.10.2025 Chandigarh Administration and another ...Petitioners Versus Vishal Khanna and others ...Respondents CWP-6340-2024 Chandigarh Administration and another ...Petitioners Versus Jyoti and others ...Respondents CWP-6351-2024 Chandigarh Administration and another ...Petitioners Versus Sahab Singh and others ...Respondents CWP-8124-2024 Chandigarh Administration and another ...Petitioners Versus Pawan Kumar and others ...Respondents CWP-8126-2024 Chandigarh Administration and another ...Petitioners Versus Narender and others ...Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE HARSIMRAN SINGH SETHI HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE VIKAS SURI Present: Mr. Jaivir S. Chandail, Addl Standing Counsel with Mr. Himanshu Arora, Advocate for the petitioner-U.T., Chandigarh.

Mr. Rohit Seth, Advocate with Mr. K. Vinay, Advocate for respondent No.1,3,4,7 & 9 in CWP-3005-2024 and for respondent No.1 in CWPs-6351-2024, CWP-8124-2024 &

CWP-8126-2024.

Mr. Rakesh Nagpal, Advocate for respondent No.1 in CWP-6340-2024.

Mr. Karan S. Gill, Standing Counsel for respondent No.10-NCTE.

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Harsimran Singh Sethi, J. (Oral)

1. In the present bunch of five petitions the challenge is to the order dated 28.08.2023 (Annexure P/3) passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal, Chandigarh Bench (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Tribunal) by which, the rules for appointment to the post of Nursery Teacher have been interpreted to mean that the candidates having diploma in Nursery Teacher Education/Pre-School Education/Early Childhood Education Programme (D.E.C.Ed.) of two years is not mandatory to be recognised from National Council for Teacher Education (hereinafter referred to as ‘NCTE’) and any such diploma held by the candidate is to be treated as a valid diploma to consider such a candidate eligible to compete for the post of Nursery Teacher.

2. Certain facts need to be mentioned for the correct appreciation of the issue in hand.

3. The petitioner-Chandigarh Administration had advertised 131 posts of the Nursery Teachers to be filled on a regular basis vide recruitment notice issued in August, 2019 and the last date of submission of the application form was 30.09.2019. The respondents competed for the said post and successfully cleared the written test on 16.11.2019 and after qualifying the same, they were called for scrutiny of their documents and in the scrutiny of documents held on 13.12.2019, they were declared ineligible keeping in view the qualification prescribed under the relevant rules as they did not possess two years diploma recognized by the NCTE.

4. The said grievance was raised by the respondents before the Tribunal by way of filing the original application and all such candidates who had raised the grievance, their original applications were decided by the Tribunal together vide order dated 28.08.2023 (Annexure P/3) wherein the claim of the respondents candidates were allowed and the Tribunal had recorded a finding that as the NCTE had also prescribed the qualifications for the post in question which are pari-materia to the qualification prescribed by the Chandigarh Administration, the diploma possessed by the candidates need not necessarily to be from an institution recognised by the NCTE, hence, such candidates should be treated eligible to compete for the 131 posts as advertised by the Chandigarh Administration vide recruitment notice issued in August, 2019. The said order dated 28.08.2023 (Annexure P/3) passed by the Tribunal is under challenge in the present bunch of petitions before this Court.

5. Learned counsel for the petitioner-Chandigarh Administration contends that the tribunal has erred in granting the benefit to the respondents-candidates solely on the basis of the rules prescribed by the NCTE disregarding the rules which have been framed and amended by the Chandigarh Administration which existed on the date when the recruitment notice of August, 2019 was issued.

6. Learned counsel for