Eligibility requiring experience in an equivalent post cannot be restricted to administrative posts absent express advertisement language.

Tripura University issued an advertisement dated 10.11.2023 for four posts of Deputy Registrar—one unreserved, one Scheduled Caste, and two Other Backward Classes posts.

The essential qualification required a Master’s degree with at least 55% marks and five years’ experience as Assistant Registrar or in an equivalent post in Pay Level 10 or above.

The petitioner, an SC-category in-service Executive Engineer of the University drawing Pay Level 11, applied for consideration against both the unreserved and SC vacancies.

The Screening-cum-Evaluation Committee initially declared both the petitioner and respondent no. 4, Dr. Muneendra Mishra, ineligible for the unreserved post; the petitioner was also declared ineligible against the SC post.

Subsequently, respondent no. 4 was declared eligible, interviewed for the unreserved post, appointed as Deputy Registrar, and joined on 11.11.2024.

The petitioner was later granted relaxation under Rule 32/Section 32.1 of the University’s Cadre Recruitment Rules, 2023, and was permitted to appear for interview against the SC vacancy. His interview was held on 02.12.2024, but the result was not published.

The petitioner challenged the exclusion of his candidature from the unreserved selection, the eligibility of respondent no. 4, the holding of separate selection processes for unreserved and reserved candidates, and the non-publication of the SC merit list.

1. Whether the petitioner and respondent no. 4 possessed the requisite experience for appointment as Deputy Registrar against the unreserved vacancy, and whether the petitioner was entitled to compete for that vacancy.

2. Whether the merit list for the unreserved candidates required review in light of the petitioner’s eligibility and the manner in which the selection process was conducted.

The Court applied the eligibility condition in the advertisement, which required five years’ experience as Assistant Registrar or in an equivalent post in Pay Level 10 or above.

It held that where the recruitment advertisement does not expressly require substantive or regular appointment, experience gained while holding current or in-charge charge of a post may be counted, depending on the nature of the functions performed.

Relying on Girija Shankar Shukla v. Sub-Divisional Officer, AIR 1973 MP 104, S.B. Patwardhan v. State of Maharashtra, (1977) 3 SCC 399, and State of Madhya Pradesh v. Laxmishankar Mishra, (1979) 3 SCR 630, the Court distinguished between requirements dependent upon holding a particular rank and requirements dependent upon performing the functions of a post.

The Court further relied on Bedanga Talukdar v. Saifudaullah Khan, (2011) 12 SCC 85, for the principle that public appointments must conform strictly to the advertised eligibility conditions and selection procedure.

The applicable reservation instructions permitted separate interviews for SC/ST candidates using relaxed standards and required reserved-category candidates selected on the general standard to be adjusted against unreserved vacancies; candidates selected using relaxed standards, however, were to be counted against reserved vacancies.

The Court also considered Union of India v. Sajib Roy and Trivedi Himanshu Ghanshyambhai v. Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, (2007) 8 SCC 644, on migration of reserved candidates to unreserved vacancies and the assessment of experience by expert selection bodies.

The Court held that the advertisement required experience in an equivalent post in the prescribed pay level but did not restrict such experience to a regular or substantive appointment, nor expressly confine “equivalent post” to the administrative wing.

Accordingly, respondent no. 4’s experience while holding current charge of Assistant Registrar could not be rejected merely because it was not based on substantive appointment.

Conversely, the University could not retrospectively impose an administrative-experience requirement to exclude the petitioner when that restriction was absent from the advertisement; such a narrow interpretation violated the requirement of adherence to the advertised conditions.

The Court accepted that the petitioner could be assessed separately against the SC vacancy under relaxed standards.

However, because his eligibility for the unreserved post had been wrongly denied and he had not been given an opportunity to compete against that post on the applicable general standard, the unreserved selection could not be treated as final.

The Court found no legal requirement for a single common merit list where SC candidates were interviewed separately under relaxed standards.

Nevertheless, the petitioner was required first to receive the result of his SC interview and, if unsuccessful, could seek an interview against the unreserved vacancy.

The University authorities were directed to publish the SC select list for the Deputy Registrar post within one week of receiving the order.

If the petitioner was unsuccessful in the SC selection, he could apply within one week for an opportunity to appear in the unreserved interview.

The University was directed to conduct that interview within four weeks of his application and publish a fresh unreserved merit list within two weeks thereafter; if necessary, it could cancel respondent no. 4’s appointment in consequence of the fresh selection.

The Court therefore held that the petitioner was entitled to compete against both the SC and unreserved vacancies, but under the distinct standards applicable to each category.