K.Kannan - (1.) 194 persons have joined together challenging the advertisement notification on the ground that the conditions imposed through the 3rd advertisement after the earlier one was issued, has slashed down the age qualification of the eligible candidates from 40 to 35 and prescribed a new eligibility criterion in educational qualification also requiring the candidate to have secured at least 73%. The counsel would rely on the earlier advertisement which had allowed for the eligible age as 45 and the particular note included in the 3rd advertisement that the persons, who had applied for the previous advertisement, need not apply as a ground for showing that this alterations was arbitrary. The counsel would also rely on the advertisements issued in the year 2007 and 2009 where there had been no specification of minimum marks as stipulated in the latest advertisement.
(2.) THE petitioners themselves are prepared to admit that the age restriction and the additional educational qualification have been made to narrow the sphere of eligible candidates and to weed out the large number of candidates from whom the selection had to be made. THE petitioners would claim that they are all contractual employees at DC rates and they ought not to be put through additional tests or they should not be subjected to any discrimination by bringing the conditions that would exclude them. I cannot allow for the objections of the petitioners to prevail for the only reason that if there are not already any specific recruitment rules providing for a particular educational qualification or the age requirement, it shall only be taken as an issue of a policy of an employer to determine norms for selection. Prescription of educational qualification or setting an outer limit for age for eligible candidates are essentially matters where the employer know best and shall not be subject to any whimsical intervention sought through a Court's process. THE learned counsel refers to a decision of this Court in Sangeeta (Dr.) Versus State of Punjab and others-2010(4) RSJ 517, where for appointment to the post of Ayurvedic doctors, the Court found that the criteria adopted for selection were fixed by the competent authority not on the basis of notified criteria but changed criteria made just one day before the selection was finalized and released. Laying down new criteria which did not exist in the notification would literally amount to change of rules of game that would be impermissible. On the other hand, the requirement spelt out in advertisement itself cannot be a subject of judicial intervention unless the norms prescribed offend any statutory provision or rule. I have not been shown through any particular provision which is offended and a mere deviation from earlier notification or the previous advertisement for qualifications for selection ought not to be a ground for a challenge in a fresh writ petition. Even the ground urged that the contractual employees should be not put to any hardship of excluding them by giving new qualifications cannot be a ground of challenge unless the rules provide for any preference for regularization or relaxation of age or educational requirement for contractual employees. THE grounds urged in the writ petition cannot afford valid grounds for securing the reliefs sought for in the writ petition. THE writ petition ought to fail and consequently dismissed.;