Degree Name vs. Subject Study: Supreme Court Orders Reinstatement of Employee Wrongfully Terminated
The Supreme Court held that employer decisions cannot be purely mechanical, insisting only on a degree's title while ignoring the actual curriculum studied. Relying on a committee report prepared without affording a hearing violates natural justice. Furthermore, an expert authority's eligibility opinion must be considered; ignoring it renders a termination order arbitrary and unsustainable.
Facts Of The Case:
The appellant, Laxmikant Sharma, was appointed on a contractual basis as a Monitoring and Evaluation Consultant in Madhya Pradesh's Public Health & Engineering Department on April 26, 2013, after responding to an advertisement that required a "Postgraduate degree in Statistics." He held an M.Com. degree, completed in 1999, which included Business Statistics and Indian Economic S...