Chennai: Over educational qualification has made a girl to get disqualified from getting selected to the post of Train Operator/Station Controller/Junior Engineer (Station). The Madras high court has upheld an order of the Chennai Metro Rail Limited, rejecting the candidature of R.Lakshmi Prabha, a B.E.Degree holder, for selection to the post of Train Operator/Station Controller/Junior Engineer (Station) on the ground of over qualification.
Dismissing a petition from R.Lakshmi Prabha, Justice S.Vaidyanathan said, “This court has no other option, but to hold that the petitioner is not entitled to the relief (to appoint her to the post of Train Operator/Station Controller/Junior Engineer) on account of over qualification and the present petition is liable to be dismissed. Accordingly, the petition is dismissed”.
According to petitioner, pursuant to the employment notice dated February 1, 2013, she had applied to the post of Train Operator/Station Controller/Junior Engineer (Station) and in the online test conducted on March 31, 2013, she was found successful and certificate verification was done on July 5, 2013. Thereafter, by the order impugned, a direction was issued to her to furnish a proof regarding non-obtaining of B.E/B.Tech degree as on July 23, 2013. It was her case that though she had cleared B.E on June 21, 2013, the certificate to that effect was issued only on July 24, 2013 and at the time of application, she was not in possession of B.E.degree, but had passed only Diploma in Electronics and Communication Engineering alone. It was her further case that she had not suppressed any information with regard to acquiring of B.E. qualification and therefore, her candidature has to be considered for appointment.
The CMRL contended that vide Clause 13 (a), there was a general instruction given to the candidates, who opted to apply for the post of Station Controller/Train Operator/Junior Engineer (Station) that “Candidates with B.E./B.Tech or any other higher qualifications are not eligible for the above mentioned posts. Candidates with such higher qualification should keep in their mind that their candidature will summarily be cancelled at any time of recruitment or even after appointment in CMRL, if they were found to have suppressed the information of having possessed B.E/B.Tech at the time of filling up the vacancy”, and therefore, Clause 2 of the Employment notice has to be read together with Clause 13 (a). The candidature of the petitioner was rejected not on the ground of suppression of fact, but on the ground of over qualification and therefore, the petitioner was not entitled to any relief sought for, the CMRL added.
The judge said the contention of the petitioner that though she had cleared her B.E degree course on June 21, 2013, the certificate was issued only on July 24, 2013 and therefore, she was not in possession of required qualification, cannot be accepted, because, once she had the knowledge of clearance of all papers in the degree course, that itself was sufficient to say that she was a B.E graduate. Admittedly, she came out successful in her graduation course prior to the cut off date, viz., July 23, 2013 and even before the date of certificate verification, which fell on July 5, 2013 and therefore, by no stretch of imagination, it can be said that she was not overqualified as on July 23, 2013, the judge added.
The judge said of course, it was true that the petitioner had not suppressed the fact of her B.E qualification, but at the same time, when Clause 13 was read in conjunction with Clause 2 of the Employment notice, it can easily be said that the petitioner was overqualified as on the cut off date and therefore, she was not entitled to any relief. “It is not denied that there is an existence of unemployment problem and when there is clear prescription of minimum qualification, barring over qualified candidates from applying, even after appointment, the candidature can be rejected and therefore, the judgment quoted by the petitioner is not applicable to the present case on hand”, the judge added.
