MBA Degree Not Equivalent to Prescribed Recruitment Qualification Unless Employer Treats It as Allied Subject: Supreme Court

Case Name: North Delhi Municipal Corporation v Kavinder and Others
Citation: 2020 INSC 458; Civil Appeal No. 232 of 2020
Date of Judgment/Order: July 21, 2020
Bench: Dr Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, Indu Malhotra, K.M. Joseph

Held: The Supreme Court held that merely studying Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations/Labour Legislation as subjects within an MBA programme does not satisfy an advertisement requiring a post-graduate degree/diploma in Social Work, Labour Welfare, Industrial Relations, Personnel Management, or an allied subject, and that unless the employer’s assessment of “allied subject/equivalence” is perverse or contrary to the prescribed requirements, courts/tribunals should not substitute their own view to declare eligibility and direct appointment.

Summary: An advertisement for recruitment to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi included the post of Labour Welfare Superintendent, prescribing essential qualifications of a graduate degree and a post-graduate degree/diploma in specified fields (or any allied subject), with certain desirable qualifications; the first respondent, though holding a B.Sc. and an MBA, was declared ineligible after the written examination stage, whereupon he approached the Central Administrative Tribunal, which treated his MBA as satisfying the requirement on the basis that he had studied HRM and Industrial Relations/Labour Legislation, and the Delhi High Court affirmed that view in writ proceedings under Article 226, but the Supreme Court found the approach legally erroneous because studying a couple of relevant subjects within an MBA does not convert the MBA into the stipulated specialised degree/diploma (or an allied subject), and the advertisement did not lay down any mechanism for establishing equivalence, making the employer best suited to decide whether the candidate’s qualification is allied, which the Tribunal and High Court wrongly overruled.

Decision: The appeal was allowed, the Delhi High Court’s judgment dated 29 November 2016 affirming the CAT’s order was set aside, the respondent’s Original Application (OA No. 1492 of 2013) before the Central Administrative Tribunal was dismissed, and there was no order as to costs, with pending applications disposed of accordingly.