Service Law:
Essential eligibility qualification – For appointment to the posts of Asstt. Commissioner (Drugs) and Drug Inspectors – Practical experience in manufacturing and testing of drugs along with academic qualification were essential qualifications for appointment – Practical experience in research and development laboratory was a desirable qualification – Respondents-candidates holding the desirable experience were declared ineligible for consideration – State Administrative Tribunal held that the experience of manufacturing or testing in research and development laboratory could not be termed as essential qualification for the appointment – High Court reversing the order of Tribunal held that research experience would also count as eligibility condition – Appeal to Supreme Court, held: It is for the employer to decide eligibility conditions for appointment – The court in the garb of judicial review cannot lay down the conditions of eligibility by an interpretive rewriting of the advertisement – Questions of equivalence will also fall outside the domain of judicial review – Experience of testing of drugs in a research and development laboratory cannot be said to be at par with the testing done at the time manufacture – Judicial Review – Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1961 – s.3(f). Allowing the appeals, the Court
HELD : 1. The essential qualifications for appointment to a post, are for the employer to decide. The employer may prescribe additional or desirable qualifications, including any grant of preference. It is the employer who is best suited to decide the requirements a candidate must possess according to the needs of the employer and the nature of work. The court cannot lay down the conditions of eligibility, much less can it delve into the issue with regard to desirable qualifications being at par with the essential eligibility by an interpretive re-writing of the advertisement. Questions of equivalence will also fall outside the domain of judicial review. If the language of the advertisement and the rules are clear, the Court cannot sit in judgment over the same. If there is an ambiguity in the advertisement or it is contrary to any rules or law, the matter has to go back to the appointing authority after appropriate orders, to proceed in accordance with law. In no case can the Court, in the garb of judicial review, sit in the chair of the appointing authority to decide what is best for the employer and interpret the conditions of the advertisement contrary to the plain language of the same. [Para 10] [98-H; 99-A-C]
2. The fact that an expert committee may have been constituted and which examined the documents before calling the candidates for interview cannot operate as an estoppel against the clear terms of the advertisement to render an ineligible candidate eligible for appointment. [Para 11] [99-D]
3. ‘Manufacture’ has been defined as a process for making, altering, ornamenting, finishing, packing, labelling, breaking up or otherwise treating or adopting any drug or cosmetic with a view to its sale or distribution. Therefore, the experience of testing has to be correlated to the manufacturing process which naturally will be entirely different from the testing carried out in the research and development laboratory before the product is released for manufacture and sale in the market. To say that experience in testing of drugs in a research and development laboratory would be at par with the testing done at the time of manufacture before sale cannot be countenanced and has to be rejected. [Para 13] [99-F-H]
4. The term “preference” mentioned in the advertisement cannot be interpreted to mean that merely because a candidate may have had the requisite experience of testing in a research and development laboratory he/she possessed the essential eligibility and had a preferential right to be considered for appointment. [Para 14] [100-B]
5. Therefore, the interpretation of the terms of the advertisement as made by the High Court both with regard to the posts of Assistant Commissioner (Drugs) and Drug Inspectors cannot be upheld. [Para 16] [101-A]
Secretary (Health), Department of Health & F.W. and Another vs. Dr. Anita Puri and Others 1996 (6) SCC
282 : [1996] 5 Suppl. SCR 361 – relied on.
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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