Orissa High Court
Satish Ranjan vs Union Of India And on 8 December, 2025
Author: S.K. Sahoo
Bench: S.K. Sahoo
IN THE HIGH COURT OF ORISSA AT CUTTACK
W.P.(C) No.28663 of 2025
Satish Ranjan ..... Petitioner
Samantray
Mr. Subhankar Das, Advocate
-versus-
Union of India and
others ..... Opp. Parties
Mr. P.K. Parhi, DSGI along with
Mr. S.K. Samantaray, CGC
CORAM:
THE HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE S.K. SAHOO
THE HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SIBO SANKAR MISHRA
ORDER
Order No. 08.12.2025
02. This matter is taken up through Hybrid
arrangement (video conferencing/physical mode).
Heard Mr. Subhankar Das, learned counsel for the petitioner and Mr. P.K. Parhi, learned DSGI along with Mr. S.K. Samantaray, learned CGC for the opp. parties.
This writ petition has been filed by the petitioner, Satish Ranjan Samantray challenging the order dated 01.05.2025 passed by the learned Central Administrative Tribunal, Cuttack Bench, Cuttack (for short, "Tribunal") in Signature Not Verified O.A. No.260/00545 of 2019 in dismissing the O.A. with a Digitally Signed Signed by: SIPUN BEHERA Designation: Senior Stenographer Reason: Authentication Location: HIGH COURT OF ORISSA, CUTTACK further prayer for a direction to the opp. parties to Date: 09-Dec-2025 11:40:47 provide appointment to the petitioner under PA/SA Cadre Page 1 of 12 in accordance with advertisement no.S.Cell/1-RE/2014 under the sports quota for carrom in the interest of justice.
The Original Application was filed by the petitioner before the learned Tribunal, wherein prayer was made for a direction to the opp. parties to give appointment to the petitioner against the post of PA cadre under Sundargarh Division.
The main ground taken in the Original Application for claiming relief is that in the said advertisement notice for recruitment of sports persons only in PA/SA Cadre, the minimum educational qualification has been prescribed as 10+2 pass. It is stated therein that sports persons who have represented the Country or State in an International or National Competition or represented their Universities in the Inter University tournament conducted by the Inter University Sports Board or represented the State School team in the National Sports/Games conducted by the All India School Games Federation in Hockey/Athletics/Basketball/Cricket/Carrom or awarded National Awards in physical efficiency under the National Physical Efficiency Drive and were within the age limit of 18-27 years can apply for the vacancies, which were 8 in number.
Pursuant to such advertisement, the petitioner applied for the said post and the opp. party no.2 vide letter dated 19.01.2015 approved the recruitment of the Page 2 of 12 petitioner for the post of PA Cadre in Odisha Circle under sports quota and was allotted to Sundargarh Division under Carrom discipline.
The letter dated 19.01.2015 was received by the petitioner from the Senior Superintendent of Post Offices, Sundargarh Division, Sundargarh to submit some documents and certificates in original for verification in order to facilitate his selection and accordingly, the petitioner submitted the required documents and certificates.
It is the case of the petitioner that in the said advertisement, it is prescribed that the educational qualification must be "10+2 pass" and the petitioner had passed Adeeb-e-Mahir from Jamia Urdu Aligarh University which is equivalent to intermediate or 10+2 examination.
According to the petitioner, the said qualification i.e. Adeeb-e-Mahir was verified and certified by the Ministry of Home Affairs/Home Ministry (Department of Personnel and Administration Reform) vide office memorandum dated 28th June, 1978 and it has been confirmed by the Jamia Urdu Aligarh University by issuing a letter dated 16.11.2015 to the opp. party no.3 i.e. Senior Superintendent of Post Offices, Sundargarh Division, Sundargarh.
The petitioner sought for information regarding the status of his documents verification and equivalence of Page 3 of 12 Adeeb-e-Mahir certificate with 10+2 through RTI, from where he came to know that the opp. party no.1 has taken a decision that Adeeb-e-Mahir certificate course offered by the Jamia Urdu Aligarh University is not equivalent to 10+2 standard for the purpose of employment under Central Government.
It is the further case of the petitioner that since the minimum educational qualification required for the post was 10+2 or any equivalent examination, which was awarded by any Board/University and the petitioner has passed Adeeb-e-Mahir offered from Jamia Urdu Aligarh University and it is equivalent to the knowledge of Urdu in Intermediate standard and also equivalent to 10+2, the opp. party no.2 has illegally and arbitrarily not accepted the same.
On being noticed, the opp. parties filed their counter affidavit to the Original Application, wherein it is specifically that Adeeb-e-Mahir course offered by Jamia Urdu Aligarh University is not equivalent to 10+2 standard for the purpose of employment under Central Government, as such course is recognized for the purpose of employment to the posts which require knowledge of Urdu of Intermediate standard and therefore, the petitioner is not eligible for appointment as replied by the Postal Directorate.
The learned Tribunal after going through the averments taken in the Original Application, the counter Page 4 of 12 affidavit and on hearing learned counsel for both the parties and taking into account the ratio laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the cases of Unnikrishnan CV and others -Vrs.- Union of India and other reported in (2023) 18 Supreme Court Cases 546, Guru Nanak Dev University -Vrs.- Sanjay Kumar Katwal and another reported in (2009) 1 Supreme Court Cases 610 and Zahoor Ahmad Rather and others - Vrs.- Sheikh Imtiyaz Ahmad and others reported in (2019) 2 Supreme Court Cases 404, wherein it has been held that equivalence is a technical academic matter and it cannot be implied or assumed and that judicial review can neither expand the ambit of the prescribed qualifications nor decide the equivalence of the prescribed qualifications with any other given qualification and that the learned Tribunal lacks any competence, authority and jurisdiction to decide the equivalency of the certificate of Adeeb-e-Mahir from the Jamia Urdu Aligarh produced by the petitioner to that of 10+2 pass, dismissed the Original Application. The learned Tribunal in the concluding paragraph has held as follows:
"6. We find that the Ministry of Home Affairs letter vide OM No.14021/2/78 dated 28, June, 1978 has been led as the foundation on the entire matter to substantiate that the qualification he has acquired is equivalent to that of 10+2, which was denied by the respondents. On microscopic examination of Page 5 of 12 the aforesaid OM No. 14021/2/78 dated 28, June, 1978, we find that this is an Office Memorandum issued by the Government of India's Ministry of Home Affairs (Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms) recognizing the courses of Jamia Urdu Aligarh. This recognition specifically acknowledges the "Adeeb" and "Adeeb-e-Mahir" examinations offered by Jamia Urdu for the purposes of employment in roles requiring Urdu language proficiency. Nowhere it has been Provided that the qualification of Adeeb-e-Mahir of Jamia Aligarh is equivalent to that of 10+2 pass. After going through the conditions stipulated in the advertisement, we do not find any substance on the submission of the applicant that the candidate should have possess the minimum educational qualification of 10+2 pass or "any equivalent qualification which is awarded by any board or university". It is a well known principle that the statement "Public orders, publicly made, must be understood as a decision"
emphasizes that a public order's meaning is determined by its public expression, not by the individual officer's later explanations of their intentions. This principle is crucial in administrative law, ensuring that public orders are interpreted objectively based on their text, not on the officer's subjective understanding [Ref: Mohinder Singh Gill & Anr
-Vrs.- The Chief Election Commissioner, 1978 AIR 851]. Since, the OM referred to above is conspicuously silent what has been stated by the applicant in the OA, we see no force on the said submission of the applicant. In view Page 6 of 12 of the discussions made above, we do not find any infirmity or illegality in the decision of the respondents".
Learned counsel for the petitioner contended that opp. party no.3 vide letter dated 23.01.2015 addressed to the petitioner intimated him that he has been approved for recruitment for Postal Assistant Cadre in Odisha Circle under sports quota and allotted to Sundargarh Division and such selection is subject to satisfactory result of verification of the certificates and documents and out of which in point no.2, it is mentioned that mark sheet of 10+2 or 12th class examination/Intermediate or equivalent examination issued by the University/Council of Higher Secondary Education is one of the required document.
Learned counsel for the petitioner drew the attention of this Court to the clarification that was made by the Registrar of Jamia Urdu Aligarh University in its letter dated 16.11.2015 addressed to the opp. party no.3 which states that several Govt. Bodies, Boards, Universities and Institutions have recognized Adeeb (as 10th Standard) and Adeeb-e-Mahir (as 12th Standard) and consider them equivalent to certificates of their respective State Boards. However, the letter dated 17.12.2018 issued by the Assistant Director General (SPN), Ministry of Communications, Department of Posts, Govt. of India addressed to the Chief Postmaster General, Odisha Circle, Bhubaneswar clearly indicates Page 7 of 12 that Adeeb-e-Mahir certificate course offered by the Jamia Urdu Aligarh University is not equivalent to 10+2 standard for the purpose of employment under Central Govt. Therefore, the Govt. of India has taken a decision that the qualification which the petitioner has got by passing the Adeeb-e-Mahir course is not equivalent to 10+2 and there is also no dispute that as per the said advertisement, the minimum educational qualification is 10+2 pass.
Learned counsel for the petitioner further drew the attention of this Court to a decision rendered by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Dev Gupta -Vrs.- PEC University of Technology and others reported in (2023) 20 Supreme Court Cases 166, wherein it has been held as follows:
"19. On an objective application of the principles outlined above, this Court is of the considered opinion that the objective of introducing the sports quota i.e. 2% of intake, was to promote and encourage those who excelled and gained a certain degree of prescribed proficiency and achievement in defined competitive sports. The introduction of this quota was to promote sports, and sportsmanship in educational institutions. No doubt, the State acts within its rights to prescribe a certain minimum eligibility standard or set of criteria as the threshold requirement for admission to any particular course, given its peculiar requirements. The Punjab and Haryana High Court, thus, upheld Page 8 of 12 the prescription of a cut-off eligibility standard of securing minimum 15% in the qualifying examination, in Jagat Preet Kaur Chadha v. Punjab University [Jagat Preet Kaur Chadha v. Punjab University, 2004 SCC OnLine P&H 961 : PLR (2004) 138 P&H 896] : (SCC OnLine P & H para 7) "7. The petitioner has himself stated that the prospectus for Punjab Engineering College had specifically provided that there would a minimum cut-off aggregate of 15 marks. The respondent University have only introduced the criteria which ensures the bare minimum of academic excellence which would be required of a student who is ultimately to become an Engineer. In Amardeep Singh Sahota case [Amardeep Singh Sahota v. State of Punjab, 1993 SCC OnLine P&H 397] the Full Bench has categorically held that these are students who will ultimately serve humanity.
Excellence in Sports may be a relevant consideration, but a certain minimum academic standard is required to be maintained."
20. The objective of introducing sports quota, however, is not to accommodate academic merit, but something altogether different:
promotion of sports in the institution, the university, and ultimately, in the country. Among others, universities are the nurseries Page 9 of 12 or the catchment for sportspersons, who can represent in State, national, international level and Olympic sports. At the same time, the State or educational institution can insist upon a minimum eligibility condition. That is not to say that such condition would necessarily and mandatorily have to be what is applicable to general (or open category) candidates. The latter kind of criteria would tend to exclude meritorious sportspersons, and place the less (academically) meritorious sportspersons, at a disadvantageous position, because they (sic have to) satisfy the open category candidates' criterion of higher academic merit".
In the said case, the eligibility criteria indicated that the candidate must have secured at least 75% aggregate marks in the Class XII (or equivalent) Board Examination and the aggregate marks of SC, ST and PWD candidates should be at least 65% in sports quota.
Therefore, the aforesaid observation has been made by the Hon'ble Supreme Court that the objective of introducing sports quota was to promote sports and encourage themselves who excelled and gained a certain degree of prescribed proficiency and achievement in defined competitive sports. No doubt, the State acts within its rights to prescribe a certain minimum eligibility standard or set of criteria as the threshold requirement for admission to any particular course, given its peculiar requirements. However, taking into account the objective Page 10 of 12 of introducing sports quota, it has been held that though State or educational institution can insist upon minimum eligibility condition for sports quota but such condition should not necessarily and mandatorily be same as applicable to general candidates.
In the case in hand, the case of the petitioner is completely different inasmuch as the Central Govt. has already taken a decision in the letter dated 17.12.2018 that Adeeb-e-Mahir certificate course offered by Jamia Urdu Aligarh University is not equivalent to 10+2 for the purpose of employment under Central Govt. and this letter has not been challenged either before the learned Tribunal or before this Court.
Therefore, after going through the impugned order passed by the learned Tribunal and since we are of the humble view that judicial review can neither expand the ambit of the prescribed qualifications nor decide the equivalence of the prescribed qualifications with any other given qualification, we find no infirmity or illegality in the impugned order of the learned Tribunal.
Moreover, in the meantime, eight years have already been passed and the learned counsel for the petitioner is not in a position to say that whether that particular post has been filed up or not.
In view of such circumstances, we do not find any merits in the writ petition and accordingly, the same stands dismissed.Page 11 of 12
Pending application (s), if any, shall stand disposed of.
Issue urgent certified copy as per Rules.
( S.K. Sahoo) Judge ( S. S. Mishra) Judge 8th December, 2025 Sipun Page 12 of 12