The Kerala High Court has held that the prescription of having appeared in the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) post-graduate programmes as a qualification for applying to the post of Assistant Law Officer in the National Thermal Power Corporation Limited (NTPC) violates the right of citizens to equality of opportunity in public employment guaranteed by Article 16 of the Constitution.
Justice V.G. Arun made the observation recently while allowing a writ petition by Aishwarya Mohan from Thrissur challenging the qualification prescribed by the NTPC to the post of Assistant Law Officers
The petitioner contended that the notification imposed the precondition that the candidates should have appeared for the CLAT 2021 PG programme conducted by the Consortium of National Law Universities, and that the selection would be based on the marks secured in CLAT 2021 militated against the fundamental right of the petitioner.
Besides, the selection and appointment to a public sector undertaking could not be based on a test conducted by such a society, that too, for admission to the post-graduate courses conducted by its member institutions, she contended.
The court also observed that even if the argument that students graduating from national law universities acquired more skill and knowledge than their less-fortunate brethren was accepted, that was no reason to deny a level playing field to others. There was no logical basis for the assumption that professionalism and competence were the fiefdoms of only those passing from elite institutions. The process now adopted was more like a walkover to the finals for a chosen few, without competing in the preliminaries.
The court directed the NTPC to accept the petitioner's application and conduct a selection test or interview for testing her eligibility for appointment to the notified post.
