THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE NOOTY RAMAMOHANA RAO WRIT PETITION No : 845 of 2011 O R D E R: Heard Sri B.P. Mohan, learned Standing Counsel for the respondent Corporation. This Writ Petition has been instituted challenging the validity of the notification brining about certain amendments to the Staff Regulations of the respondent Corporation. Petitioners 1 to 3 have been working as Zonal Managers (Engineering) in the service of the respondent Corporation, while the 4th petitioner works as a Deputy Zonal Manager (Engineering). The Board of Directors of the respondent Corporation, in exercise of power available to them, under Article 79 of the Articles of Association of the said Corporation framed APIIC Staff Regulations, 1974, which came into force from 26.09.1973. The various posts available in the service have been organized into separate units depending upon the nature of work performed by them and one of them deals with the engineering wing. All the four petitioners, who are diploma-holders, have earned promotions at regular intervals competing on certain occasions along with the graduate engineers. The petitioners submit that both graduate engineers and diploma- holders are promoted and are functioning as Zonal Managers (Engineering) of the Corporation. There is no water tight compartmentalization of the cadre amongst graduates and diploma-holders. Both graduates as well as diploma-holders get transferred against each other’s post, thus signifying interchangeability amongst them. There is a common seniority list maintained in which the names of the employees are arrayed in accordance with their relative seniority, but not based upon the academic distinctions or qualifications held by them. It is further stated that even a diploma- holder was considered for promotions right up to the post of Engineer- in-chief in the Corporation and, in fact, the present incumbent is only a diploma-holder but not even a graduate in Engineering. However, the Corporation, through the amendments introduced, as notified on 27.09.2010, prescribed a bachelors degree in Civil Engineering as the minimum qualification for purposes of earning promotions as Chief General Manager (Engineering), Chief Engineer (Engineering) and Engineer-in-Chief. Learned counsel for the writ petitioners Sri G. Maloji Rao, submits that in the past 25 years, the Corporation has never felt it necessary to promote only graduate engineers to the aforementioned posts. They have promoted non-graduate diploma- holders also in the past and there was never any deficiency noticed in the performance of duties by them. According to the learned counsel for the petitioners, all Zonal Managers formed into a homogenous cadre and a group and the said group cannot be further divided into two segments; one graduate engineers and another non-graduate engineers and thereafter, deny the right to be promoted to the next higher post by the non-graduate engineers. It amounts to simple and pure discrimination violating the fundamental rights guaranteed to the petitioners under Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India. It is not in dispute that the posts of Chief General Manager (Engineering), Chief Engineer and Engineer-in-Chief occupy fairly very high status in the engineering wing of the services of the Corporation. The Corporation has been established with the prime objective of promoting industrial infrastructure, so that large scale industrialization of the State takes place. The very nature of tasks entrusted and performed by the respondent Corporation comprise significant portion of engineering activities. Therefore, if the Board of Directors of the respondent Corporation have considered it appropriate, keeping in view the nature of duties and responsibilities liable to be performed by certain higher level posts, to prescribe the minimum qualification of graduation in engineering to render the candidates eligible for such promotions, in my considered opinion, there is a direct nexus between the qualifications prescribed and the nature of duties and responsibilities entrusted or liable to be performed by the incumbents occupying certain higher posts. The posts of Chief General Manager (Engineering), Chief Engineer and Engineer-in- Chief, by the very nature of their calling, involve certain assured amount of skill and expertise in engineering. If the Corporation considers that a minimum of engineering degree is essentially needed for one to perform capably certain duties, it is obviously intended for promoting the efficiency of the organization. The respondent Corporation has to necessarily provide the industrial infrastructural facilities, which can adequately cater to the needs of industrial entrepreneurs. The needs of industrial entrepreneurs may be varying and divergent. It may not be merely enough for the Corporation to provide roads, water, drainage and electricity. There can be many more special requirements that are needed to be provided and put in place and such additional infrastructural facilities, which cater to the specified needs of particular types of industrial units, might be essentially required for attracting potential entrepreneurs for investing and establishing industrial units. Therefore, the respondent Corporation might require complex engineering tasks to be performed by it henceforth and hence, if it seeks to enhance qualitatively its services, based upon the academic inputs of the candidates, such a classification is difficult to be perceived as a discrimination. It might be true that the Corporation may allow non-graduate engineers to progress in their career up to a stage, say Zonal Engineers (Engineering) and it may not further allow them to progress, but however, the same cannot be said as plainly discriminatory, without being said anything more. Long years ago, a similar contention has been canvassed before a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in State of Jammu & Kashmir v. Triloki Nath Khosa[1], and it has been emphatically repelled by Justice Chandrachud speaking for the Bench, in paragraphs 26 and 27 of the said judgment, as under: “ 26. Respondents have assailed the classification in the clearest terms but their challenge is purely doctrinaire ‘Academic or technical qualification can be germane only at the time of initial recruitment; for purposes of promotion efficiency and experience alone must count’ – this is the content of their challenge. The challenge, at best, reflects the respondents’ opinion on promotional opportunities in public services and one may assume that if the roles were reversed, respondents would be interested in implementing their point of view. But we cannot sit in appeal over the legislative judgment with a view to finding out whether on a comparative evaluation of rival theories touching the question of promotion, the theory advocated by the respondents is not to be preferred. Classification is primarily for the legislature or for the statutory authority charged with the duty of framing the terms and conditions of service; and if, looked at from the standpoint of the authority making it, the classification is found to rest on a reasonable basis, it has to be upheld. 27. Our reason for saying this is to emphasize that the respondents ought to have furnished particulars as to why, according to them, the classification between diploma-holders and degree-holders is not based on a rational consideration having nexus with the object sought to be achieved. In order to establish that the protection of the equal opportunity clause has been denied to them, it is not enough for the respondents to say that they have been treated differently from others, not even enough that a differential treatment has been accorded to them in comparison with others similarly circumstanced. Discrimination is the essence of classification and does violence to the constitutional guarantee of equality only if it rests on an unreasonable basis. It was therefore, incumbent on the respondents to plead and show that the classification of Assistant Engineers into those who hold diplomas and those who hold degrees is unreasonable and bears no rational nexus with its purported object. Rather than do this, the respondents contended themselves by propounding an abstract theory that educational qualifications are germane at the stage of initial recruitment only. Omission to furnish the necessary particulars was construed by this Court in two cases as indicating that the plea of unlawful discrimination had no basis, Katra Education Society v. State of Uttar Pradesh, 1966 (3) SCR 328, 336 and 337 = (AIR 1966 SC1307) Probhudas Morarjee Rajkotia v. Union of India, AIR 1966 SC 1044, 1047. Such an infirmity in pleadings led this Court in State of Madhya Pradesh v. Bhopal Sugar Industries Ltd. (1964) 6 SCR 846 = (AIR 1964 SC 1179) to remand the matter to the High Court in order to enable the petitioner therein to amend its petition.” I, therefore, do not find any infirmity, on the basis of the pleadings set up in this case, for me to hold the impugned amendments carried out by the Corporation as either unconstitutional or bad in law. Therefore, the Writ Petition is dismissed at the stage of admission itself. No costs. ---------------------------------- Nooty Ramamohana Rao, J 24th January 2011 ksld ..... REGISTRAR // TRUE COPY // SECTION OFFICER To 1.2CCs to 2.2CD copies Form-NIC-OGS/WP{TRK} [1] AIR 1974 SC 1