Sudip Pradhan vs United Bank Of India & Anr

Amrita Sinha, J

The father of the petitioner was employed with the United Bank of India. He died in harness on 3rd April, 2015. The application made by the petitioner for employment under the died-in-harness scheme was received by the bank on 9th November, 2015. In the said application the petitioner mentioned his educational qualification as class ten. The application of the petitioner was rejected by the bank on the ground that he failed Madhyamik examination whereas as per extant circular the entry level examination for recruitment in subordinate cadre is class ten passed. The same was communicated to the petitioner by a letter dated 9th March, 2016.

The petitioner thereafter made an application under the Right to Information Act with request for providing the extant recruitment policy for appointment in the bank in the subordinate category. In response to his application the petitioner by a communication dated 4th August, 2017 was intimated that his candidature was considered and rejected as per recruitment policy for appointment in subordinate category. With regard to the prayer of providing the circular it was informed that the information as sought do not involve any larger public interest which would warrant of disclosure of such information and hence exempted under Section 8(1)(d) read with Section 11(1) of the Right to Information Act. As the petitioner did not cite any public interest that would commend superseding the protected interest in the matter of disclosure of requested information accordingly, the said information sought by him cannot be provided.

The petitioner is aggrieved by the rejection of his application for appointment on compassionate ground. The specific case of the petitioner is that the circular relating to the scheme for appointment on compassionate ground dated 20th October, 2014 does not specify any educational qualification as the eligibility criteria and accordingly the decision of the respondent rejecting the prayer of the petitioner on the ground of inadequate educational qualification is bad in law and liable to the set aside.

The petitioner relies upon the circular dated 20th October, 2014 published by the United Bank of India. The said circular contains the Scheme for compassionate appointment in the bank (hereinafter the Scheme). In serial no. 6 of the said Scheme it has been mentioned that the appointment shall be made in the clerical and sub-staff cadre only upon fulfilment of the eligibility criteria such as educational qualification, age etc. as prescribed in the recruitment policy of the bank for recruitment under clerical and sub-staff cadre and the same may be amended from time to time.

The petitioner relies upon a UBI recruitment application form which is allegedly available in the official website of the bank wherein the educational qualification for recruitment for the sub-staff post has been mentioned. The qualification indicates that for the post of sub-staff a candidate has to pass class eight.

The petitioner submits that the observation of the bank that the petitioner has failed Madhyamik is absolutely false and incorrect. It has been submitted that the petitioner never appeared in the Madhyamik examination and accordingly the question of failing therein does not arise. The petitioner has annexed a copy of the certificate cum mark sheet issued in his favour by the Jharkhand State Open School in respect of High School Certificate examination (10th class) wherein he appeared and passed in the first division in the year 2016.

The petitioner submits that the bank has illegally and arbitrarily rejected his prayer as the recruitment policy of the bank does not specify that a candidate has to pass class ten examination for being appointed in the sub-staff category. It has been submitted that on the date his application was considered by the respondent he was class eight passed. Thereafter he appeared in the class ten examinations in the year 2016 and passed in the first division.

The petitioner relies upon an unreported judgment passed by the Hon'ble Single Judge of this court on 17th January, 2014 in WP 850 of 2010 (Mukul Chandra Bhattacharya vs. UOI & Ors.) wherein the court observed that the regulations of the bank are statutory in nature and therefore any modification or amendment thereof is required to be effected by the bank itself with prior approval of the Union of India and Reserve Bank of India.

The petitioner submits that assuming that the bank has formulated any rule/regulation fixing up or modifying the minimum educational qualification for recruitment in the post of sub-staff the same is mandatorily required to be gazetted in the official gazette. He contends that there is no statutory regulation of the bank fixing up the educational requirement of passing class ten examinations for appointment in the post of sub-staff. In the absence of official publication in the gazette the application of the petitioner is liable to be considered by the bank strictly in accordance with the Scheme.

The bank in its affidavit in opposition has stated that the entry level qualification for subordinate cadre is enumerated in paragraph 3 of the recruitment policy of the respondent bank which says that the minimum qualification required is passing class ten. The recruitment policy has been annexed with the said opposition. The respondents submit that they have acted in accordance with the said circular and rightly rejected the case of the petitioner, as he was not class ten pass, at the time when his application was taken up for consideration.

The learned advocate of the respondent has relied upon a resolution adopted by the Board of Directors of the United Bank of India dated 15th December, 2011 wherein a proposal was made for fixing up the minimum qualification for recruitment of sub-staff as class 10th standard pass wherein the Board of Directors observed that the bank was already following the minimum educational qualification of class ten pass for appointment in the sub-staff cadre.

The respondent prays for dismissal of the writ petition.

I have heard the submissions made on behalf of both the parties.

The Scheme pursuant to which the petitioner applied for appointment mentions that the appointment shall be made subject to the fulfilment of the eligibility criteria as prescribed in the recruitment rules/policy of the bank for recruitment. No such recruitment policy prescribing the minimum educational qualification of class ten pass for appointment in the sub-staff cadre has been produced before this court. The recruitment policy which has been annexed with the affidavit in opposition though mentions that a candidate ought to possess the educational qualification of passing class ten for obtaining appointment in the sub-staff category but the said recruitment policy does not bear any date. The said recruitment policy appears to be a part of a bunch of documents. Only pages 21 to 24 of the said bunch have been annexed with the affidavit in opposition. In spite of directions the entire set of documents was not produced before the court. As no date is provided on the said circular it is not possible for the court to come to a conclusion whether the said circular was at all applicable in the case of the petitioner. The court is left wondering as to whether the said circular was in existence when the application of the petitioner was taken up for consideration.

The petitioner has averred that when he sought employment in the bank he had not passed his class 10 examination, but soon thereafter he has passed the said examination from the Jharkhand State Open School. The application of the petitioner was taken up for consideration by the bank in March, 2016 and the Class 10 pass certificate was issued in his favour in June, 2016. The prayer of the petitioner was allegedly rejected relying upon the bank's circular dated 20th October, 2014. The circular dated 20th October, 2014 does not prescribe any educational qualification with regard to recruitment of sub-staff in accordance with the Scheme.

The petitioner relies upon Section 23(5) of the General Clauses Act, 1897 with regard to publication of the rule in the official gazette. It has been submitted that the Rule requiring a candidate to pass class ten examination for appointment in the sub-staff category not being published in the official gazette do not have any statutory flavour and the same cannot be invoked or implemented for giving appointment to the petitioner.

The recruitment application form (2014-15) of the bank relied upon by the petitioner allegedly available in the official website of the bank seems to be last updated on 20th December, 2018. It mentions that the educational qualification for recruitment in the sub-staff cadre is class 8 pass. The United Bank of India recruitment application form relied upon by the petitioner, on a close perusal, does not appear to be downloaded from the official website of the bank. The same appears to have been downloaded from a private portal which mentions that the application has to be submitted before the Chief Representative, United Bank of India at an address located in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The contents of the said application form cannot be relied upon for the purpose of adjudication of the instant case.

As per clause ten of the Scheme there is a provision for submission of applications up to maximum five years from the date of death of the employee and the bank is to take a decision on merits. In the instant case the employee concerned expired on 3rd April, 2015, the petitioner applied before the authority on 9th October, 2015, the application was rejected by a communication dated 9th March, 2016 and the petitioner obtained his class ten pass certificate on 27th June, 2016.

As there is no authentic confirmation before this court with regard to the prescribed educational qualification for recruitment in the sub-staff cadre of the bank, this court is handicapped to decide whether the application of the petitioner was considered in accordance with the prescribed norms.

In view of the above the instant writ petition is disposed of by directing the competent authority to reconsider the prayer of the petitioner for appointment strictly in accordance with the Scheme. At the time of consideration of the prayer of the petitioner the competent authority shall keep in mind the primary objective of the Scheme to provide financial aid to the distressed dependent of the deceased.

As the petitioner applied for appointment well within time and in the meantime has obtained his class ten pass certificate the competent authority is directed to take into consideration the class ten pass certificate of the petitioner at the time of consideration of his application. The competent authority shall take a decision in the matter within a period of six weeks from the date of communication of a copy of this order and shall pass a reasoned order and communicate the same to the petitioner within a fortnight thereafter.

W.P No. 516 of 2017 is disposed of.

There will be no order as to costs.

Urgent photostat certified copy of this order, if applied for, shall be given to the parties as expeditiously as possible on compliance of all necessary formalities.