or subsidiary subjects are those, which do not carry any credit and are merely qualifying subjects. The marks awarded are not reckoned for the purpose of grading. Having held so, the Division Bench then examined the corrigendums of 2000 and 2010 and in that context observed that executive instructions could be issued when the Recruitment Rules are silent on a point to fill up gaps and supplement the rules, but not to supplant them or overwrite them. Thereafter, the Court examined, whether the prescription that students should have studied the core or elective subjects in each of the three years with the question paper of minimum 100 marks in the said subject, was a valid stipulation and could have been imposed by executive instructions, though there was no such stipulation in the Recruitment Rules. It is in this context that the Division Bench had made observations in paragraphs 40 to 42 quoted above, elucidating the object and purpose behind the use of the expression “elective subject” and prescribing the same in the Recruitment Rules. It was held that the expression requires that the student should have a through and good knowledge of the subject. The marks assigned to a particular paper or whether or not the subject was studied in two or three years was not a determinative or rational factor. To prescribe such conditions would be contrary to law as it would suffer from the vice of arbitrariness and irrationality. Different universities follow their own pattern and have full freedom to do so. They can teach elective or core
