A Supreme Court bench consisting of Justices MR Shah and BV Nagarathna said that a court of law cannot act as an expert in the field of education, and the selection of candidates should be left with the concerned institutions. The court further added that there cannot be any deviation from the educational qualifications in an advertisement for a job.
"In the field of education, the court of law cannot act as an expert normally, therefore, whether or not a student/candidate is possessing the requisite qualification should better be left to the educational institutions, more particularly, when the Expert Committee considers the matter," the SC bench said.
The observation came as the court dismissed a batch of pleas challenging the Jharkhand High Court order concerning the selection process for the appointment of postgraduate teachers in the high school of Jharkhand for different subjects under different categories.
"We have gone through degrees/certificates in the case of respective writ petitioners. It appears that the respective writ petitioners have obtained postgraduate degrees/bachelor degrees, as the case may be, in one of the branches of history, namely, Indian Ancient History, Indian Ancient History and Culture, Medieval/Modern History, Indian Ancient History, Culture and Archaeology," the bench noted.
According to the advertisement, the candidate must possess a postgraduate/bachelor's degree in history.
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The bench further added, "In our view, obtaining the degree in one of the branches of history cannot be said to be obtaining the degree in history as a whole. As a history teacher, he/she has to teach in all the subjects of history, namely, Ancient History, Indian Ancient History and Culture, Medieval/Modern History, Indian Ancient History, Culture and Archaeology etc."
This means that having obtained a degree in one of the branches of history cannot be said to have a degree in history subject as a whole, which was the requirement of the job, the top court said.
"In the present case, the educational qualifications required have been specifically mentioned in the advertisement. There is no ambiguity and/or confusion in the advertisement providing educational qualifications and the post for which the applications were invited (History/Civics)," said the SC bench.
"There cannot be any deviation from the educational qualifications mentioned in the advertisement. Once having found that the respective writ petitioners – appellants herein were not having the requisite qualification as per the advertisement, namely, the Postgraduate/Bachelor degree in History, which was the requirement as per the advertisement and thereafter their candidature was cancelled, both the learned single judge, as well as the division bench of the high court, have rightly refused to interfere with the same," the bench said.
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