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K. Radhika v. T. Rajya Laxmi & Others

Civil Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Civil Appeal No. 4201 of 2015)Decided 5 May 2015
Civil Appeal No. 4201 of 2015
Justice J. Chelameswar · Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel

Background

The Hyderabad Metropolitan Sessions Judge's office advertised five posts of Personal Assistant, requiring (among other things) a shorthand qualification, with a preference clause for candidates holding the "Higher Grade" shorthand certificate over those with only the "Lower Grade" certificate. The appellant, who held only the lower-grade shorthand qualification, was selected after a written exam and interview; a rival candidate holding the higher-grade qualification challenged the selection before the Andhra Pradesh High Court, which read the notification's preference clause as mandatory and quashed the appellant's selection.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court found the High Court's reasoning on the notification's qualification clause difficult to follow and, in substance, flawed: there was no finding that any suitable higher-grade candidate had actually been available and passed over, and the rival candidate's own answer script was shown to contain numerous errors, undermining the suggestion that higher-grade candidates should be appointed on paper qualification alone regardless of actual merit. The Court held the recruiting authority's selection process should not have been interfered with, allowed the appeal, and set aside the High Court's judgment.

Lesson Learnt

A "preference" clause in a recruitment notification favouring one qualification over another is not an absolute bar on considering other qualified candidates, especially where there is no proof that preferred candidates who were actually suitable were wrongly bypassed: courts should be cautious about overturning merit-based selections on a technical reading of eligibility criteria.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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