Candidates with higher qualification shouldn’t be recruited: Single judge

As per the case, the petitioner R Lakshmi Prabha, pursuant to the Employment notice dated February 1, 2013 had applied to the post of Train operation, Station Controller, Junior Engineer (Station) called by Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL). In the online test conducted on March 31, 2013, she was found successful and a certificate verification was done on July 5, 2013. Thereafter, a direction was issued to the petitioner to furnish a proof regarding non-obtaining BE, degree as on July 23, 2013.

But the petitioner had cleared BE on June 21, 2013 and based on that CMRL rejected her application. Thereafter, she moved the court on the contention that at the time of application she was not in possession of BE degree, but had passed Diploma in Electronics and Communication Engineering alone. She had sought to consider her candidature for appointment as she had not suppressed the detail of obtaining BE.

CMRL had contended that the petitioner’s candidature was not rejected on the ground of suppression of fact, but on the ground of over qualification.

However, Justice Vaidyanathan set aside the contention of the petitioner’s counsel that taking note of the unemployment situation in this country, more particularly in Tamil Nadu, the act of CMRL in depriving the rights of the petitioner on the ground of over qualification cannot be accepted.

He said, “It is true that the petitioner had not suppressed the fact of her BE qualification, but at the same time when Clause No 13 is read in conjunction with Clause No 2 of the employment notice, it can be easily said that the petitioner is overqualified as on the cutoff date and therefore she is not entitled to any relief.”