The Kerala High Court in the case NTPC v. Aishwarya Mohan observed and held that the conditions mandating applicants to clear CLAT for applying to the post of Assistant Law Officer in National Thermal Power Corporation Limited (NTPC) is lawful.
The Division bench comprising of Justice A.K Jayasankaran Nambiar and the Justice Mohammed Nias C.P. observed and thereby allowed the appeal preferred by NTPC against the decision of a Single Judge which held that such a condition was violative of Article 16 of the Constitution of India. However, the decision of Single Judge has been set aside.
In the present case, the contentions of the writ petitioner that an official notification should have been issued before the examination communicating that CLAT scores would be considered was also dismissed by the Court noting that the condition was already in the public domain and that it has been prevalent since 2016.
The Court observed that the impugned decision of the Single Judge came in a petition moved by an aspirant to the post of Assistant Law Officer in NTPC and at CUSAT an LL.M student with a specialization in Intellectual Property Rights. Further, she completed LLB with an average score of 70% and claims to have several academic accolades to her account and is eligible to apply for the post of Assistant Law Officer at NTPC.
However, it was observed that the notification issued by the Corporation mandates that the candidate must have appeared for CLAT-2021 to be considered for the post and that based on the rankings in the said examination, they will be shortlisted. It was held by the Single Judge that the notification confining the selection process only to candidates who had appeared for the CLAT-2021 PG program me amounts to indirect discrimination.
The Single Judge bench to avoid upsetting the entire selection process, the bench had directed NTPC to accept the petitioner’s application and test her eligibility through a selection process.
The bench had opined that the selection based on CLAT clearance is an established practice, pointing out that the previous recruitment to the NTPC in 2016 was also done through the same selection process, and that the petitioner ought to have known that, when the matter came up for appeal.
The Counsel appearing for the NTPC is Solicitor General Tushar Mehta assisted by Advocates Adarsh Tripathi, Vikram Singh and Ajitesh Garg, while the Advocate Maitreyi S. Hegde represented the writ petitioners.