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Vikas Sankhala & Ors. Etc. v. Vikas Kumar Agarwal & Ors. Etc.

Civil Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Civil Appeal Nos. 3550-3555 of 2016)Decided 18 Oct 2016
Civil Appeal Nos. 3550-3555 of 2016
Justice A.K. Sikri · Justice R.K. Agrawal

Background

Following the RTE Act, 2009 and NCTE norms, candidates for teacher appointments were required to clear a Teacher Eligibility Test (TET). A state government policy allocated 20% weightage to TET marks in the final merit list, and also allowed relaxed/reduced passing-mark standards for reserved-category candidates in TET, consistent with ordinary reservation policy. Several unsuccessful general-category and other candidates challenged this scheme as violating the constitutional guarantee of equal opportunity in public employment.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that giving 20% weightage to TET score for all candidates uniformly, irrespective of category, was permissible and did not disturb the "level playing field" among candidates. It further held that relaxing the TET qualifying marks for reserved-category candidates, and allowing migration from reserved to general category where a reserved candidate scored above the last selected general candidate, were legitimate aids to reservation under Articles 14, 15, 16 and 38 of the Constitution, provided these concessions applied only at the eligibility stage, before the actual open competitive merit determination. On this basis, the batch of appeals was allowed in the manner and with the specific directions indicated in the judgment regarding treatment of TET-qualified reserved candidates and migration to general category.

Lesson Learnt

Reservation-related relaxations (like reduced qualifying marks or age relaxation) given to candidates only to help them become eligible to compete are not unconstitutional "extra advantages": they operate before the real merit competition begins, so they don't violate the equal-opportunity guarantee once everyone competes together on the same final merit list.

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

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