Civil Engineering Diploma And Degree Don’t Meet Architecture Requirement For Punjab Building Inspector Post, P&H HC Holds

The petitioner applied for the post of Building Inspector pursuant to an advertisement dated 17 June 2022.

He held a Diploma and a Bachelor of Technology degree in Civil Engineering, but his application was not accepted because he did not hold the prescribed qualification in Architecture/Architecture Assistantship.

After submitting a representation seeking consideration of his candidature, he filed a writ petition seeking a direction to treat his Civil Engineering qualifications as equivalent to, or higher than, the prescribed qualification and to quash the relevant advertisement clause

The respondents maintained that the advertised qualifications conformed to the applicable recruitment rules.

The petitioner did not appear at the hearing; the State relied on a coordinate Bench’s decision in Nipun Syal v. State of Punjab

The applicable qualification was prescribed by the advertisement and the Punjab Municipal Corporation Services (Recruitment and Conditions of Service) Rules, 1978, Appendix B: a Diploma in Architecture/Architecture Assistantship, or a higher qualification in the relevant field, from a recognised institution.

Under Ganpat Singh Gangaram Singh Rajput v. Gulbarga University, (2014) 3 SCC 676, a court cannot treat a qualification in a different subject as the prescribed qualification merely because the latter subject is taught as part of the former course.

Devender Bhaskar v. State of Haryana, 2022 (1) SCT 51, and the authorities discussed therein establish that prescribing qualifications and determining academic equivalence are matters for the employer or competent expert authority; courts ordinarily cannot expand eligibility criteria or determine equivalence.

The coordinate Bench’s decision in Nipun Syal v. State of Punjab applied these principles to the same qualification issue.

The Full Bench decision in Manjit Singh was distinguished because it concerned a candidate possessing a higher qualification in the prescribed field, rather than a qualification in a different discipline.

The petitioner’s Diploma and degree were both in Civil Engineering, whereas the rules required a qualification in Architecture/Architecture Assistantship or a higher qualification in that relevant field.

A higher qualification in Civil Engineering was not, for that reason alone, equivalent to the prescribed Architecture qualification.

Determining whether the courses were academically equivalent would require assessment by an expert, and the Court found no basis to undertake that assessment under Article 226.

The Court also followed the coordinate Bench’s decision in Nipun Syal, which had rejected an identical claim, and found that Manjit Singh did not assist the petitioner.

Finding no merit in the petition, it dismissed the writ petition.