The petitioner challenged the award of 10 marks for a B.Sc (Agriculture) degree instead of the claimed 15 marks for a professional qualification in an LPG distributionship recruitment. The Court held that a B.Sc (Agriculture) is an academic graduate degree, not a professional one.
The writ petition was dismissed with no merit found.
This page shows the compact analysis of this judgement. The full analysis — procedural history, issue-by-issue holdings with ratio and obiter, advocates, and paragraph-level evidence for every claim — is being added to the record in batches and will appear here when this judgement has been through it.
CWP No.17854 of 2009
1
IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH
CWP No.17854 of 2009
Date of decision: 15.2.2012
Amarjit Singh Dhaliwal
-----Petitioner
Vs.
Union of India and others
----Respondents
CORAM:- HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE AJAY KUMAR MITTAL
Present:Mr.J.S.Santwal, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr. Raman Sharma, Advocate for respondent No.2. Mr. Raman B.Garg, Advocate for respondent No.3.
Ajay Kumar Mittal,J .
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distributionship of LPG in response to the advertisement. Vide letter dated 22.7.2009, Annexure P.2, he was called for interview on 11.8.2009. As per advertisement, a criteria was fixed to evaluate the candidates. The petitioner has four years degree in B.Sc (Agriculture) from Punjabi University, Patiala, Annexure P.4. According to the petitioner, as per the criteria, he is entitled
to be awarded 15 marks under the head “Educational qualification” but he was awarded only 10 marks. Merit list dated 12.8.2009 Annexure P.5 was prepared according to which respondent Nos. 3, 4 and 5 were placed at first, second and third position respectively. The said respondents were awarded 26.17, 24.08 and 23.83 marks respectively whereas the petitioner was awarded 22.17 marks. It is averred that vide similar advertisement dated 1.12.2007, Indian Oil Corporation and Hindustan petroleum Corporation also advertised some distributionships for LPG. The petitioner applied there and though not succeeded, he was awarded 15 marks for educational qualification. The petitioner sent a representation dated 14.8.2009, Annexure P.7 but having received no response, he has filed the present writ petition.
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learned counsel if instead of 10 marks, 15 marks had been awarded to the petitioner for educational qualification as per his entitlement, he would have been successful.
thus:-
“Contents of para 7 are totally wrong and hence denied. It is denied that the petitioner is entitled to 27.17 marks instead of 22.17 marks. The petitioner has rightly been awarded 10 marks under the head 'Educational Qualification' because the qualification of the petitioner is not professional. As has been laid down in the criteria, the professional qualification has been defined as 'technical/law/medical/management graduate/chartered/cost accountant or higher qualifications B.E., B.Tech., MBA, CA or equivalent,
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minimum 4 years'. A glance through the above quoted words would show that a particular category of qualification has been termed as professional. Term 'minimum 4 years' does not mean that all degrees with four years duration would be treated as professional. There are many degrees like Hotel Management, B.Sc (Nursing), B.Pharma, B.Sc (Agriculture) etc. which are of 4 years duration. The professional degrees may be understood to mean that a person after acquiring the professional qualification would be entitled to run his own profession whereas the person not having professional degree would be simple graduate in a particular field not entitled to render his services to the society as a professional. The Selection Committee has rightly taken the qualification of the petitioner as that of a graduate and not as that of a professional. The petitioner has not produced any material immediately after the declaration of result that any academic body has declared his qualification to be a professional qualification. Therefore, the petitioner is unnecessarily raking the issue which has no legal value.”
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“11.I have already referred to the observations of Palekar,J., that the three learned professions viz., the ecclesiastical and medical and the legal professions which are the traditional liberal professions, cannot be the only professions for all the time and that with the change of time and expansion of spheres of human activity requiring specialization and expertise, more professions are bound to come up. But in order to qualify for being reckoned as liberal profession, a profession has to satisfy certain conditions, viz., that the activity carried on by it must not be an activity of a commercial nature as a trade or business. The main asset of the professional man which he brings into the practice of his profession must be intellectual skill or manual skill controlled by intellectual skill. Apart from the skill there should be a degree of intelligence and integrity and above all the professional man should be member of an organized profession for admission to which high academic or professional qualifications are required and the professional organization controls the admission to, the discipline in and removal from the profession on account of act of indiscipline or misconduct. There must also be a code of professional ethics and in addition there must be a judicial remedy against exclusion from the profession on account of indiscipline or misconduct by the professional organization. Let us take the instance of the legal profession. There are well settled standards of conduct and etiquettes prescribed for the legal profession in India, England, United States and several other countries. An advocate is required to comport himself in a manner befitting his
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status as an officer of the Court, a privileged member of the community, and a gentleman. He owes a duty to the Court consistent with his independence, a duty to his client consistent with his duty to the Court and to the opponent and his advocate. The advocate also owes a duty to his opponent and his advocate. He also owes a duty to his profession and his colleagues who are its members. There are restrictions on his taking up other employment and a high professional rectitude is expected of him. The Bar Council of the State and the Bar Council of India are the professional organizations which control the admission to, the discipline in and punishment for misconduct in the profession. There is an appeal to the Supreme Court of India. Similarly, in the case of the medical profession, there are Medical Councils which control the admission to, the discipline in and punishment for misconduct in the profession. High academic or professional qualifications are prescribed for admission to the profession. It is due to the membership of these professional organizations and their control over its members that the public have come to repose great trust in the members of these professions. It is only these ingredients that can make a profession a liberal profession.”
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same is dismissed.
February 15, 2012 (Ajay Kumar Mittal) ‘gs’ Judge
2 issues framed by the court
Whether a B.Sc (Agriculture) degree with a four year course qualifies as a 'Professional' degree under recruitment criteria.
Whether the petitioner's grievance regarding the award of marks for educational qualification has merit.
Colour shows how this judgement treated each authority
R.S.Deshpande and another v. Municipal Corporation of Greater BombayReferred¶30
R.S.Deshpande and another v. Municipal Corporation of Greater Bombay, (1975) IILLJ 45 Bom.
Amarjit Singh Dhaliwal
Union of India
Ajay Kumar Mittal
As recorded by the court registry
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court
