Kerala High Court upholds CLAT PG clearance condition to apply for NTPC Law Officer selection

The Kerala High Court on Monday upheld the condition mandating that applicants to the post of Assistant Law Officer at National Thermal Power Corporation Limited (NTPC) should have cleared the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT)..A division bench of Justices AK Jayasankaran Nambiar and Mohammed Nias CP overturned a judgment of a single-judge who had struck down the condition. The bench held that the present selection criterion was not violative of the right to equality before the law guaranteed by Article 14 of the Constitution of India. "The basic principle underlying Article 14 is only to ensure that law must operate equally on all persons under the like circumstances and a discretionary power conferred on the employer to fix the eligibility standards or qualification cannot be held to be discriminatory. Guarantee for equality cannot imply that qualifications should be prescribed to make every one eligible without conceding the right to the employer to choose what he considers as the best qualification given the nature of the job to be undertaken," the Court said in its judgment..It further held that the criterion cannot be struck down on presumption of violation of Article 16 which guarantees equality of opportunity to all citizens. "Article 16 only speaks of equality of opportunity and not opportunity to achieve equality and is also different from equality of the results. We have to concede the power of the State to frame rules of classification to secure the standard of efficiency they aspire for and classifications always need not be arithmetically exact or to suit the majority. We have no doubt that the selection process in the instant case does not suffer from the vice of discrimination or arbitrariness and we uphold the selection process," the bench held..The question before the Court was whether, after having secured an LLB degree from any recognised Indian university with 60 per cent marks as qualification, the eligibility can be restricted to candidates who have appeared for CLAT-2021 post-graduation programme and whether its score can be made the basis for selection..The order of the single judge, which was challenged, came in a petition moved by a postgraduate student who is currently pursuing her LL.M. at the Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT). The University is not a part of the Consortium of National Law Universities, meaning that she never had to appear for CLAT-PG.A notification calling for applicants to the post of Assistant Law Officer was issued by the NTPC. The petitioner claimed that she has the notified qualification of 60 per cent marks in LL.B. and registration with the Bar Council.However, the selection process was confined to candidates who have appeared for CLAT PG 2021.The single-judge had held that the notification issued by NTPC was discriminatory and that the inclusion of CLAT clearance as a criterion did not have any rational nexus to the object sought to be achieved.However, rather than upsetting the whole selection process, the Court had deemed it fit to direct the NTPC to accept the petitioner's application and conduct a selection test or interview for testing her eligibility for appointment as Assistant Law Officer..The NTPC challenged the same before division bench..Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the appellant NTPC submitted that the additional criteria of qualifying CLAT was incorporated because it was found to be the most suitable method for assessing the skill set required of candidates.He further contended it is the prerogative of the employer to fix eligibility criteria and there is limited scope for judicial interference in such matters.He further pointed out that conducting a separate nationwide examination for recruitment to 10-15 vacancies would not be feasible.On the other hand, advocate Maitreyi S Hegde, appearing for the writ petitioner, argued that the CLAT clearance criteria thwarts the chances of a majority of aspirants out of the 1,721 law colleges in India, only 23 are members of the Consortium of National Law Universities.Therefore, imposition of said criterion amounts to indirect discrimination, she contended.After hearing the matter at length, the division bench had while reserving its judgment opined that prima facie there seems to be no illegality in the selection criteria adopted by the NTPC.Solicitor General Tushar Mehta was assisted by advocates Adarsh Tripathi, Vikram Singh and Ajitesh Garg..[Read Judgment]