Central Administrative Tribunal - Delhi
Deepti Aggarwal vs Govt. Of Nctd on 10 August, 2018
CENTRAL ADMINISTRATIVE TRIBUNAL
PRINCIPAL BENCH: NEW DELHI
O.A. No.1936 of 2018
Orders reserved on : 07.08.2018
Orders pronounced on : 10.08.2018
Hon'ble Ms. Nita Chowdhury, Member (A)
Hon'ble Mr. S.N. Terdal, Member (J)
Ms. Deepti Aggarwal,
D/o Surender Mohan Aggarwal,
Aged about 32 years,
R/o Q. No.248, Street No.19,
Partap Nagar Delhi - 110007,
Post : TGT (Natural Science)
Post Code : 11/13
....Applicant
(By Advocate : Shri Tenzing for Mr. Anuj Aggarwal)
VERSUS
1. Govt. of NCT of Delhi,
Through its Chief Secretary,
Delhi Secretariat,
I.P. Estate, New Delhi-110002.
2. Directorate of Education,
Director of Education,
Govt. of NCT of Delhi,
Old Secretariat Building,
Civil Lines, Delhi-110054.
3. Directorate of Education,
Through its Assistant Director of Education,
Govt. of NCT of Delhi,
Old Secretariat Building,
Civil Lines, Delhi-110054.
.....Respondents
(By Advocate : Ms. P. Maheshwari)
ORDER
Ms. Nita Chowdhury, Member (A):
Through this OA, the applicant is seeking the following reliefs:-
"(i) Set aside the impugned Office Order No.DE.3 (112)/E-III/DR/2016/5051 dated 07.09.2017 2 whereby the candidature of the applicant for appointment on the post of TGT (Natural Science) (Post Code 11/13) was rejected;
(ii) Direct the Respondents to appoint the applicant on the post of TGT (Natural Science) (Post Code 11/13) and grant her all the consequential benefits including seniority, arrears of salary, etc;
(iii) issue any appropriate order or direction as this Hon'ble Tribunal may deem fit and proper in the interest of justice and in the favour of the applicant; and
(iv) allow the present application with cost in favour of the applicant."
2. It is the case of the applicant that her candidature for appointment to the post of TGT (Natural Science), Post Code No.11/13), was incorrectly rejected by the Assistant Director of Education, Govt. of NCT of Delhi. It is the contention of the applicant that her qualification is sufficient to be appointed for the post code against which she appeared in the examination.
3. The respondents have filed their counter reply in which they have raised the preliminary objection that the applicant has acquired Bachelor's degree, i.e., B.Sc. (Hons) in Anthropology from University of Delhi in 2007 wherein she had studied Chemistry and Zoology as subsidiary subjects in 1st year and 2nd year alongwith English. The said subsidiary subjects are mandatory subjects which need to be qualified/passed but the marks awarded are not counted and only the marks awarded in the main/elective subjects are reckoned for the purposes of becoming eligible for the award of degree.
3.1 The respondents further stated that the Recruitment Rules for the post of TGT (Natural Science) (Female) as notified by the 3 Directorate of Education vide Notification dated 5.7.1972 and amended vide Notification dated 11.12.1991, inter alia, provides as under:-
"Education and other qualifications required for direct recruits:
A. Bachelor's degree (pass/hons.) from a recognized University or equivalent having secured at least 45% marks in aggregate in two school subjects of which at least one out of the following should have been at the elective level:
(a) English, (b) Mathematics, (c) Natural/physical Science,
(d) Social Science.
Note : As per policy the definition of elective in R/Rs has been framed as that the candidate should have the main subject concerned as mentioned in the R/Rs of atleast 100 marks each in all parts/year of graduation. The elective word may also mean subject as practiced in different universities. (Circulated vide No.F-De.3(42)/E.111/99/1688-1699, dt. 13.3.2000) Note: Main subjects for (i) TGT (Natural Science) are Biology, Botany, Zoology, Chemistry & Physics."
3.2 Thus, a candidate should have 45% marks at graduation level in Natural/Physical science for which the main subjects shall be Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Botany, Zoology and should have studied the main subject atleast 100 marks each in all parts/year of graduation. In terms of Corrigendums' dated 13.3.2000 & 30.3.2010 the candidate should have studied the subject concerned in all parts/years of graduation.
3.3 The applicant has not studied any school subjects prescribed in RRs at the Elective level in graduation as the applicant's main subject was Anthropology both in B.Sc. and M.Sc. 3.4 The respondent even constituted a committee vide Order No.De.3(54)/E-III/DR(pf)/2014/104-108 dated 10/01/2017 to 4 resolve the issue regarding specialized subject being offered by University of Delhi and other University may be considered in addition to the subjects as mentioned in the recruitment rules of TGT/TGT (Mil). The case of the applicant was placed before the committee alongwith other candidates. The subject expert Dr. Manoj Kumar Joshi, Asstt. Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi, has given his written opinion in the meeting held on 05.07.2017 which is as under:-
"The candidate has applied for TGT (Natural Science) with degree in Anthropology. According to RRs of Directorate of Education, GNCTD the subject does not fit with the subjects which have been listed by Directorate of Education, Delhi. Hence, the candidate does not qualify for this post."
The said Committee accepted the advice of the subject expert and recommended that the candidature of the candidate needs to be rejected. Accordingly, on the recommendation of the Committee and approval of competent authority, the candidature of the applicant was cancelled vide order dated 7.9.2017, which is impugned in the present OA.
3.5 They further stated that the Memorandum dated 15.11.2016 w.r.t. offer of appointment to the post of TGT (N.Science) clearly states in clause 1 :
"That this offer of appointment is subject to successful verification of original documents in respect of educational qualifications, age, category and other documents. If any discrepancy is found, this offer stand cancelled without assigning any reason."
Further Clause 13 provides that the same is only an offer and does not entitled him/her appointment.
54 During the course of arguments, learned counsel for the applicant submitted that impugned office order dated 7.9.2017 is arbitrary, unreasonable, discriminatory, punitive, unconstitutional, violative of Article 14, 16 and 21 of the Constitution of India. Counsel further submitted that the applicant studied subjects (i) Chemistry and (ii) Zoology for 2 years at the graduation level and the said subjects were of 150 marks in each year. Counsel for the applicant himself submitted that the applicant has not studied Chemistry and Zoology subjects in 3rd years of her graduation because the said subjects were offered by University of Delhi in B.Sc. (Hon.) course only in the initial two years.
4.1 Learned counsel for the applicant placed reliance on the judgment of the Hon'ble Delhi High Court in the case of Govt. of NCT of Delhi and ors. vs. Sachin Gupta in Writ Petition (C) No.1520/2012 and other connected cases decided on 7.8.2013 in support of the claim of the applicant. He further submitted that applicant has done M.Sc. in Anthropology and, therefore, possesses better/higher qualification than prescribed in the Recruitment Rules for the post of TGT (Natural Science) (Female). Counsel for the applicant has also placed reliance on the judgment of the Hon'ble Delhi High Court in Srishti vs. Govt. of NCT of Delhi and Ors. in Writ Petition (C) No.10392/2016 decided on 23.5.2017 in support of his contentions.
4.2 Counsel further submitted that applicant made repeated representations but the same have not been considered by the 6 respondents while passing the impugned office order and as such the impugned order is a non-speaking order.
5. Counsel for the respondents reiterated the stand taken by them in their counter affidavit.
6. We have heard the learned counsel for the parties and have perused the material placed on record.
7. At the outset, we would like to say that in the present case, the respondents themselves constituted the Committee for deciding whether the subject read by the applicant be considered for the post of TGT (Natural Science) or not. As per the meeting dated 24.7.2017, after due deliberation the Committee is of the view that "the subject expert advised that the candidate has applied for TGT (Natural Science) with degree in Anthropology. Hence, the candidate does not qualify for this post. The committee accepted the advice of the subject expert and recommended that the candidature of the candidate needs to be rejected. The respondents on the basis of the aforesaid opinion of the Committee rejected the candidature of the applicant for the post in question.
8. It is a settled law that in academic matters, unless there is a clear violation of statutory provisions, the Regulations or the Notification issued, the Courts shall keep their hands off since those issues fall within the domain of the experts. The Hon'ble Apex Court in University of Mysore vs. C.D. Govinda Rao, AIR 1965 SC 491, Tariq Islam vs. Aligarh Muslim University (2001) 8 SCC 546 and Rajbir Singh Dalal vs. Chaudhary Devi Lal University (2008) 9 SCC 284, 7 has taken the view that the Court shall not generally sit in appeal over the opinion expressed by expert academic bodies and normally it is wise and safe for the Courts to leave the decision of academic experts who are more familiar with the problem they face, than the Courts generally are.
9. So far as the judgments of the Hon'ble Delhi High Court relied upon by the learned counsel for the applicant in the cases of Govt. of NCT of Delhi and others vs. Sachin Gupta (supra) and Srishti vs. Govt. of NCT of Delhi and others (supra) are concerned, the same are distinguishable as the facts of those cases are not similar to the facts of the present case.
10. In the result, for the forgoing reasons, we do not find any fault in the impugned order dated 7.9.2017 passed by the respondents and accordingly the present OA is dismissed being devoid of merit. There shall be no order as to costs.
(S.N. Terdal) (Nita Chowdhury)
Member (J) Member (A)
/ravi/