Candidate Was Appointed On Probation And Was Not An Apprentice: Supreme Court Upholds Judgment Treating Probation Period As Experience For NTPC Recruitment
The Supreme Court upheld the view taken by the Division Bench of the Delhi High Court which held that the period of probation of the candidate with the previous employer should be considered as experience for recruitment for the post of Engineer in the NTPC Ltd. and dismissed the SLP filed by the NTPC.
The Appellant- National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) challenged the order passed by the Division Bench of the Delhi High Court which reversed the order passed by the Single Judge dismissing the writ petition and declaring that the period of probation should be excluded for counting experience.
The Bench of Justice Hrishikesh Roy and Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra observed, “As we notice, the respondent was not an apprentice in the earlier organisation and was appointed on probation. His previous employer had issued him the requisite experience certificate…In the above circumstances, the view taken by the learned Division Bench in granting relief to the respondent–writ petitioner is found to be in order. The direction for the respondent’s appointment from the date when others in the same batch were appointed, cannot also be faulted. The appeal accordingly is found devoid of merit and the same is dismissed.”
Advocate Naman Jain appeared for the Appellant while Senior Vibha Datta Makhija appeared for the Respondent.
The respondent, an OBC candidate, applied for the position of Engineer (E-2 grade) in Electrical/Mechanical/Electronics/Instrumentation disciplines for NTPC's Thermal Power Plant shift operations. The advertisement required a minimum of three years of post-qualification experience. The Respondent, deemed eligible, participated in the selection process, passed the online test, and was shortlisted for an interview. He submitted experience certificates indicating nearly three years of work i.e. 2 years and 10 months as an Assistant Engineer at Chennai Radha Engineering Works and experience as a Contract Engineer at Bharat Electronics Ltd. (BEL) from February 2019. However, NTPC authorities disqualified him, stating that they proposed to exclude the training period towards the experience eligibility for the respondent.
Aggrieved, the Respondent filed a writ petition before the Delhi High Court which was dismissed by the Single Judge by declaring that the period of probation should be excluded for counting the experience. He then assailed the order and the Division Bench reversed the order.
The Court said “The learned Division Bench, after having considered the offer letter dated 28.10.2015 (Annexure P-1) and the experience certificate (dated 09.10.2018) issued by the respondent’s former employers, opined that the period of probation for the appointee should be included to satisfy the requirement of the experience criteria. The Court said that distinction has to be made between probation and training and when the respondent was on probation and was drawing a regular salary, he would be deemed to have gathered the requisite experience to meet the stipulation made in the advertisement issued on 06.08.2019.”
“Adverting specifically to the advertisement, the Division Bench commented that the advertisement nowhere stipulated that the probationary period or the training period is to be excluded for the purpose of computing the total period of experience, for any candidate”, the Court stated.
Accordingly, the Court dismissed the appeal as being devoid of merits.
Cause Title: NTPC v. Piyush Kumar Singh
Appearances:
Appellant: Advocate Naman Jain and AOR R Arunadhri Iyer
Respondent: Senior Vibha Datta Makhija, Advocates Raj Kishor Choudhary, AOR Shakeel Ahmed, Vikramjeet Singh Ranga, Pratibha Singh, Karan Mamgain and Parveen Gaur.
