KRISHNA IYER - (1.) WE fully endorse what has been said by our learned brother Chandrachud, J., but the profound depths of equal justice in public employment touched in his final paragraph (with which we ardently agree) impel a few concurring observations of our own.
(2.) IN this unequal world the proposition that all men are equal has working limitations, since absolute equality leads to procrustean cruelty or sanctions indolent inefficiency. Necessarily, therefore, an imaginative and constructive modus vivendi between commonness and excellence must be forged to make the equality clause viable. This pragmatism produced the judicial gloss of 'classification' and 'differentia', with the by-products of equality among equals and dissimilar things having to be treated differently. The social meaning of Arts. 14 to 16 is neither dull uniformity nor specious 'talentism'. It is a process of producing quality out of larger areas of equality extending better facilities to the latent capabilities of the lowly. It is not a methodology of substitution of pervasive and solvenly mediocrity for activist and intelligent - but not snobbish and uncommitted - cadres. However, if the State uses classification casuistically for salvaging status and elitism, the point of no return is reached for Arts. 14 to 16 and the Court's jurisdiction awakens to deaden such manoeuvres. The soul of Art. 16 is the promotion of the common man's capabilities over-powering environmental adversities and opening up full opportunities to develop in official life without succumbing to the sophistic argument of the elite that talent is the privilege of the few and they must rule, wriggling out of the democratic imperative of Arts. 14 and 16 by the theory of classified equality which at its worst degenerates into class domination. The relevance of these abstract remarks to the present case is obvious. Engineers with diplomas are likely to be drawn from poorer families and not necessarily because they are incapable of making the 'degree' grade. An opportunity for them to level up, through experience and selfstudy, with their more fortunate degree-holding meritocracy, is of the essence of equal opportunity for people with dragging backgrounds. If economically, and therefore educationally, handicapped men distinguish themselves, they are heroes and should be honoured and not kept humble through life on account of the original sin of inferior qualifications. Indeed, diploma holders in that Himalayan State were good enough, in the past decades, to go to the top of the ladder, as the facts of this case admittedly disclose. However, in those young days few engineering graduates in the State and few engineering colleges in the country compelled Government to recruit diploma holders and promote them to higher offices. But circumstances have changed, needs have increased, availabilities have expanded and inequalities at the educational level have been partly eliminated. And so personnel policy, with an eye on efficiency, has changed. While we agree with counsel that 'chill penury' should not 'repress their noble rage', still during our transitional developmental stage the sacrifice of technical mental stage the sacrifice of technical proficiency at the altar of wooden equality is an unreasonable injury the State cannot afford to self-inflict. The technology of equal opportunity is to assume diffusion of talent and to afford in-service facilities, through relaxation of rules and otherwise, to the weaker members to acquire better skills. The wise and tonic words of our learned brother, if we may say so with great deference, are however portentous. While striking a balance between the long hunger for equal chance of the lowlier and the disturbing concern of the community for higher standards of performance, the State should not jettison the germinal principle of equality altogether. The dilemma of democracy is as to how to avoid validating the abolition of the difference between the good and the bad in the name of equality and putting to sleep the constitutional command for expanding the areas of equal treatment for the weaker ones with the dope of 'special qualifications' measured by expensive and exotic degrees. These are perhaps meta-judicial matters left to the other branches of Government, but the Court must hold the Executive within the leading strings of egalitarian constitutionalism and correct, by judicial review, episodes or subtle and shady classification grossly violative of equal justice. That is the heart of the matter. That is the note that rings through the first three fundamental rights the people have given to themselves.
(3.) MINI-classifications based on micro-distinctions are false to our egalitarian faith and only substantial and straightforward classifications plainly promoting relevant goals can have constitutional validity. To overdo classification is to undo equality. If in this case Government had prescribed that only those degree holders who had secured over 70 Per Cent marks could become Chief Engineers and those with 60 Per Cent alone be eligible to be Superintending Engineers or that foreign degrees would be preferred we would have unhesitatingly voided it. The role of classification may well recede in the long run, and the finer emphasis on broader equalities implicit in the concluding thought of the leading judgment will abide. The decision in this case should not - and does not - imply that by an undue accent on qualifications the Administration can cut back on the larger tryst of equalitarianism or may hijack the founding and fighting faith of social justice into the enemy camp of intellectual domination by an elite. The court, in extreme cases, has to be the sentinel on the qui-vive. CHANDRACHUD, J. (on behalf of Ray, C.J., Palekar J., and himself):- ;