Uttarakhand High Court
WPSB/113/2021 on 9 March, 2021
IN THE HIGH COURT OF UTTARAKHAND
AT NAINITAL
THE HON'BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE SRI RAGHVENDRA SINGH CHAUHAN
AND
THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE ALOK KUMAR VERMA
WRIT PETITION (S/B) No. 113 OF 2021
09TH MARCH, 2021
Between:
Manohar Singh. ...Petitioner
and
State of Uttarakhand and another. ...Respondents
Counsel for the petitioner : Mr. Vinay Kumar.
Counsel for the respondent
no.1 : Mr. K.N. Joshi, leaned
Deputy Advocate
General for the State.
Counsel for the respondent
no.2 : Mr. Ashish Joshi.
The Court made the following:
JUDGMENT : (per Hon'ble The Chief Justice Sri Raghvendra Singh Chauhan)
The petitioner is aggrieved by the fact that he is
not being permitted to take the main examination for the
post of Assistant Conservator of Forest, which is scheduled
to be held on 13 March, 2021.
2. Briefly, the facts of this case are that on
30.07.2019, the Uttarakhand Public Service Commission
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("the Commission", for short) issued an advertisement for
initiating the selection process for the post of Assistant
Conservator of Forest. According to that advertisement,
the essential educational qualification for a prospective
candidate is that "a candidate for direct recruitment to the
post of Assistant Conservator of Forest, must have a
Bachelor of Science, Technology or Engineering Degree
from Universities established by law in India, or an
equivalent degree with atleast one of the following
subjects:-(i) Agriculture, (ii)Botany, (iii)Chemistry,
(iv)Computer Application/ Computer-Science,
(v)Engineering - Agriculture / Chemical / Civil / Computer/
Electrical/ Electronics/ Mechanical, (vi)Environmental
Science, (vii)Forestry, (viii)Geology, (ix)Horticulture,
(x)Mathematics, (xi)Physics, (xii)Statistics, (xiii)Veterinary
Science, (xiv)Zoology."
3. According to the petitioner, since he was a
Bachelor of Arts, having taken a paper in Mathematics, he
was eligible for the said post. Therefore, he applied for the
said post. Having cleared the preliminary examination, he
equally applied for the main examination. However, by
order dated 23.02.2021, the petitioner's candidature has
been rejected, inter-alia, on the ground that the petitioner
had claimed that he had B.Sc degree or equivalent of B.Sc
degree in mathematics and economics, whereas the
petitioner actually has a degree in Bachelor of Arts. Since,
3
he does not have the eligibility requirement, his
candidature was dismissed by the Commission. Hence, the
present writ petition before this Court.
4. The learned counsel for the petitioner has
vehemently contended that since the petitioner did take a
course in mathematics in graduation, he does have "an
equivalent degree to a B.Sc". Therefore, the rejection by
the Commission is highly arbitrarily, and, thus, illegal.
5. Heard the learned counsel for the petitioner.
6. The position being taken by the learned counsel
for the petitioner is highly misplaced. Admittedly, the
petitioner has a Bachelor of Arts degree. Bachelor of Arts
happens to be a humanities degree. Even if, one paper in
mathematics is taken, it does not convert a degree of
Bachelor of Arts into Bachelor of Science degree. Even in
liberal arts education, a person coming from the
humanities branch may be required to take one or two
course of Science subject. But nonetheless, the majority of
the subject are in humanities and not in Science subject.
Therefore, a B.A. degree can never be considered "as
equivalent to a B.Sc degree" or "a degree of Bachelor of
technology" or "B.E".
7. A bare perusal of the essential educational
qualification prescribed by the Commission, clearly reveals
4
that the requirement is that the person should not just be
Bachelor of Science, or B.Tech, or B.E., but more
importantly, he must have had any one paper in the
subjects enumerated therein (mentioned hereinabove).
Therefore, the contention being raised by the learned
counsel is clearly untenable.
8. For the reasons stated above, this Court does
not find any merit in the present writ petition. The writ
petition, being devoid of merit, deserves to be dismissed.
It is, hereby, dismissed.
_____________________________
RAGHVENDRA SINGH CHAUHAN, C.J.
___________________
ALOK KUMAR VERMA, J.
Dt: 09th March, 2021
Shubham
