Indian Kanoon - Search engine for Indian Law

4. The appointments of the respondent No. 3 Shri Bhaskar Choudhury and respondent No. 4 Shri Sunirmal Bhattacharjee are assailed by the writ petitioner on the ground that their respective bachelor degrees or equivalent degrees in engineering from a recognized university/institute as provided in the advertisement were not acceptable in law. In other words, they are not valid degrees.

5. As regards the qualification of respondent No. 3 Shri Bhaskar Choudhury, it is contention of the writ petitioner that the said respondent had obtained his bachelor or equivalent degree in engineering from an institute namely Institute of Advance Studies in Education (IASE), which is stated to be a deemed to be university. As regards the respondent No. 4 Shri Sunirmal Bhattacharjee, it is the contention of the petitioner that the qualification of the said respondent is a degree in Bachelor of Science in Engineering Technology from an institute namely Birla Institute of Technology and Science at Pilani (for short 'BITS Pilani').

6. Mr. U.K Nair, learned Senior counsel for the respondent No. 3 Shri Bhaskar Choudhury refers to the decision of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Orissa Lift Irrigation Corporation Limited Vs. Rabi Sankar Patro and Ors. reported in (2018) 1 SCC 468 [hereinafter referred to as 'Orissa Lift Irrigation Corporation Limited (i)'], wherein the issue before the Supreme Court was on the acceptability of the engineering degrees from certain institutes, including the IASE. Prima facie the Hon'ble Supreme Court found the degrees offered by such institutes to be unacceptable in law but at the same time, due Page No.# 5/10 consideration was also given to the consequences that the students who obtained such degrees would ultimately have to bear and upon such consideration, in paragraph 66.4, it was provided that such category of students who had obtained their engineering degrees from the institutes concerned including the IASE, be given no more than 2(two) chances to clear tests to be conducted by the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) and the entire expenditure in conducting the test by the AICTE be recovered from the deemed to be universities concerned from where the degrees were obtained.

(ii) (supra), the degree of Bachelor of Engineering of the respondent No. 3 obtained from IASE was a valid degree for all purposes and time and therefore, the contention of the petitioner that the said degree is unacceptable would have to be rejected.

9. Having gone through the provisions laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Orissa Lift Irrigation Corporation Ltd. (i) (supra) and Orissa Lift Irrigation Corporation Ltd. (ii) (supra) and also having considered the factual aspect that the respondent No. Shri Bhaskar Choudhury had passed the AICTE test held in May/June, 2018, in the first attempt itself, the degree obtained by the said respondent from the institute IASE would have to be considered to be a valid engineering degree for all purposes. Accordingly the selection and appointment of the respondent No. 3 pursuant to the advertisement dated 25.11.2016, on the basis of his degree of Bachelor of Engineering from the IASE would have to be accepted to be valid in law without requiring any interference.