Maharashtra Public Service Commission v. Sandeep Shriram Warade
Background
The Maharashtra Public Service Commission had advertised posts of Assistant Commissioner (Drugs) and Drug Inspectors, prescribing a pharmacy/pharmaceutical science degree plus practical experience in manufacturing or testing of drugs as the essential qualification, with research experience in a laboratory treated only as a "preferred" extra qualification. Some candidates with only research-laboratory experience (no manufacturing-line experience) were nonetheless allowed to compete and were later held eligible by the High Court, prompting the Commission to appeal. The Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal had originally held such candidates ineligible, but the High Court reversed that view in multiple writ petitions.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held that it is for the employer, not the courts, to define essential versus desirable/preferential qualifications in a recruitment advertisement, and that courts cannot re-interpret a "preference" clause as if it created an independent essential eligibility. Testing of drugs in a research and development laboratory is fundamentally different from testing carried out during actual drug manufacture, so the two cannot be treated as equivalent. The Court restored the Tribunal's view, held the High Court's interpretation of the advertisement to be erroneous, set aside the High Court's judgments, and allowed the Commission's appeals with no order as to costs.
Lesson Learnt
When a government job advertisement separates an "essential" qualification from a merely "preferred" one, candidates who only hold the preferred qualification cannot claim they are automatically eligible: courts will generally defer to the employer's own plain wording of the advertisement rather than rewrite it.