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Judgment
Per: Pradeep Mittal J.
Since the issues involved in these writ petitions are common, they are being disposed of by this common order. For the sake of convenience, the facts of Writ Petition No. 30125 of 2025 are being referred to for deciding the controversy involved in the present batch of petitions.
This petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India assails: (i) the notification dated 29.01.2010 issued by respondent No.1, whereby the essential educational qualification prescribed for the post of "Taxation Assistant" under Schedule-III of the M.P. Commercial Tax Department Subordinate Taxation Service (Class-III Executive) Recruitment Rules, 2007 (hereinafter "the Rules of 2007") was amended from "Graduate in any stream from a recognised University" to "Graduate in Commerce from a recognised University"; (ii) Clause 5 of Schedule-V of the Rules of 2007, more particularly sub-clause (2) thereof as amended by notification dated 20.07.2023, which provides for award of marks on the basis of comparative assessment of Annual Confidential Reports (ACRs) of the preceding five years, in the process of selection to the said post through Limited Departmental Competitive Examination and (iii) the advertisement/rule book dated 19.09.2023 issued by respondent No.3 inviting online applications from departmental ministerial employees to fill up 95 posts of Commercial Tax Inspector and 121 posts of Taxation Assistant through the said Limited Departmental Competitive Examination, written examination whereunder was scheduled to be held on 09.12.2023.
Shorn of unnecessary details, the facts relevant for adjudication are that the Rules of 2007 were framed by the State Government in exercise of powers conferred under proviso to Article 309 of the Constitution of India, governing recruitment and conditions of service of the Subordinate Taxation Service (Class-III Executive) in the Commercial Tax Department. Under the Rules as originally framed, only the post of Commercial Tax Inspector found place in Schedule-V, of which 75% was earmarked for direct recruitment and 25% for selection, in lieu of promotion, from amongst the clerical staff of the Department through a Limited Departmental Examination, for which the minimum qualification prescribed was graduation in any stream together with a diploma/certificate in computer knowledge and five years' continuous service on a clerical post.
By notification dated 15.12.2008, the post of "Taxation Assistant" was inserted in Schedule-V alongside the existing post of Commercial Tax Inspector, and 442 posts of Taxation Assistant were correspondingly sanctioned in Schedule-I in the pay scale of Rs.4500-125-7000/-, at par with the pay scale of Commercial Tax Inspector, to be filled up 75% by direct recruitment and 25% by promotion. The qualification then prescribed for Taxation Assistant was graduation from a recognised University, or Certificate of ICWA/CA (Intermediate), together with a computer certificate/diploma and five years' continuous clerical service. By the impugned notification dated 29.01.2010, this qualification was amended in Schedule-III by substituting "Graduate in any stream" with "Graduate in Commerce" for the post of Taxation Assistant alone, the qualification for Commercial Tax Inspector continuing to remain graduation in any stream. Subsequent amendments dated 17.10.2011 and 13.01.2015 restructured the mode of filling the post from "by selection" back to "direct recruitment" and again to "Limited Competitive Examination" from amongst the clerical cadre, without disturbing the qualification differential introduced in 2010. Finally, by notification dated 20.07.2023, sub-clause (2) of Clause 5 of Schedule-V was amended to prescribe marking of ACRs of the preceding five years 20 marks for "outstanding", 15 for "very good", 10 for "good" and 5 for "average" for a maximum of 100 marks, to be added to 300 marks allotted for the written examination (two papers of 150 marks each), aggregating to 400 marks for the purpose of the Limited Departmental Competitive Examination.
It is on this backdrop that respondent No.3 issued the advertisement/rule book dated 19.09.2023, inviting applications from eligible departmental candidates for 95 posts of Commercial Tax Inspector and 121 posts of Taxation Assistant, fixing 09.12.2023 as the date of written examination. The petitioners, who are ministerial/clerical employees of the Department not holding a Commerce graduation, being rendered ineligible to compete for the post of Taxation Assistant on account of the 2010 amendment, have approached this Court assailing the said amendment as well as the marking scheme under Clause 5 of Schedule-V, and by extension, the advertisement dated 19.09.2023 to the extent it gives effect to the same.
Learned counsel for the petitioners has urged that Commercial Tax Inspector and Taxation Assistant discharge identical duties, draw identical pay-scale, and have been treated as equivalent posts for purposes of the M.P. VAT Act, 2002 and for promotion to the post of Assistant Commercial Tax Officer, and that, there being no intelligible differentia with a rational nexus to any object sought to be achieved, the prescription of a distinct qualification of "Graduate in Commerce" for Taxation Assistant alone offends Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution. That the impugned notification dated 29.01.2010 creates "a class within a class" amongst similarly circumstanced ministerial employees without any substantial basis. That award of marks on the basis of ACR assessment under Clause 5 of Schedule-V is arbitrary inasmuch as ACR gradings are subjective, susceptible to bias, and liable to change upon representation even after preparation of the select list. That the Rules are silent on the eligibility of probationary/unconfirmed employees to compete in the Limited Departmental Examination, resulting in an anomaly qua the requirement of five years' continuous clerical service, and that the advertisement dated 19.09.2023, being founded on the impugned and unconstitutional provisions, is itself vitiated and deserves to be stayed, with liberty to petitioners to appear in the written examination without the Commerce graduation requirement.
Per contra, learned counsel for the respondents/State, while resisting the petition, has raised a preliminary objection of delay and laches, pointing out that the notification dated 29.01.2010 was never assailed for nearly thirteen years until the filing of the present petition in 2023, during which period the classification between the two feeder posts has held the field and has even informed subsequent policy, including the notification dated 06.04.2013 whereby promotion to the post of Assistant Commercial Tax Officer was restructured to draw 50% from Commercial Tax Inspectors and 50% from Taxation Assistants. On merits, it is submitted that prescription of educational qualification for a post is a matter squarely within the recruitment policy domain of the employer, and courts do not ordinarily interfere with such prescription in exercise of writ jurisdiction unless it is shown to be tailor-made to favour particular individuals or is otherwise mala fide, which is not the case here; that both under direct recruitment (Schedule-III) and under the Limited Departmental Competitive Examination (Schedule-V) the qualification prescribed for Taxation Assistant is uniformly "Graduate in Commerce", so that no discrimination arises within the class of aspirants for that very post, and the differentiation is only vis-à-vis the distinct post of Commercial Tax Inspector, for which a rational nexus exists having regard to the specialised, accounts and taxation oriented nature of the duties attached to the post of Taxation Assistant; that the allocation of 100 marks (out of an aggregate of 400) for ACR assessment by a duly constituted Committee of senior officers, for a promotional Limited Departmental Examination which is itself an exception to the ordinary rule of direct recruitment, cannot be said to be excessive or arbitrary; and that identical grounds concerning the very Rules of 2007 and the very advertisement dated 19.09.2023 were raised and rejected by a Coordinate Bench of this Court in W.P. No. 25920/2023 (Chandrakant Mishra v. State of M.P.), decided on 18.10.2023, wherein it was held that prescription of educational qualification and eligibility criteria falls within the employer's domain and that allocation of 300 marks for the written examination and 100 marks for ACR assessment did not offend Articles 14 and 16.
Having heard learned counsel for the parties and having perused the Rules of 2007 as amended from time to time, the notifications impugned, and the record, the following points arise for determination:
Whether the prescription of "Graduate in Commerce" as the essential qualification for the post of Taxation Assistant, vide notification dated 29.01.2010, is violative of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India?
Whether the marking scheme for ACR assessment under Clause 5 of Schedule-V, as amended on 20.07.2023, is arbitrary and unconstitutional?
Whether the alleged silence of the Rules qua probationary employees vitiates the recruitment process?
What is the effect of the decision of the Coordinate Bench in W.P. No. 25920/2023 on the present controversy?
Whether the petition is liable to be dismissed on the ground of delay and laches. These are taken up seriatim.
Learned counsel for the petitioners has drawn attention to paragraph 8 of the respondents' reply, wherein it is stated that a bare perusal of the scheme of the Rules of 2007 would itself reveal that the posts of Commercial Tax Inspector and Taxation Assistant have been given equal treatment, and has sought to contend, on this basis, that the two posts being equal, the prescription of a distinct qualification for Taxation Assistant alone is arbitrary. This contention does not commend itself to acceptance. The equal treatment referred to in the respondents' reply relates only to pay scale and conditions of service, and not to the nature of work assigned to the two cadres under the Act. The cadre of Taxation Assistant was created to provide dedicated assistance for implementation of the Act in respect of functions that could not be assigned to the Inspector of State Tax, and the work of the two posts is, to that extent, distinct a distinction that justifies the requirement of Commerce graduation for the post of Taxation Assistant. There is accordingly no force in the petitioners' argument that, the respondents having treated both posts as equal, the qualification prescribed for the two ought also to have been identical, or that the qualification for the post of Taxation Assistant is on that account arbitrary.
The Inspector of State Tax cannot perform functions under Section 72 of the Act. Under Section 72, only an Assistant Taxation Officer, or an officer holding a higher post, is authorised to perform such functions. The minimum qualification for the post of Assistant Taxation Officer is a bachelor's degree in commerce, whereas the qualification for the post of Inspector of State Tax is only a bachelor's degree in any discipline. The promotional post for an Inspector of State Tax is Assistant Commercial Tax Officer. Employees of the Commercial Tax Department/Madhya Pradesh Subordinate Taxation Service (Class-III Executive) who possess a bachelor's degree are eligible for promotion to the post of Inspector of State Tax, whereas employees who possess a bachelor's degree in commerce are additionally eligible for promotion to the post of Assistant Taxation Officer. These two posts are, therefore, entirely different in terms of their qualifications, statutory responsibilities, and functions. Although some duties assigned to both posts may overlap, the powers and functions under Section 72 can only be exercised by an Assistant Taxation Officer, since that post requires a bachelor's degree in commerce.
Therefore, merely because both posts carry the same pay scale and share certain common duties, it cannot be concluded that the departmental promotion rules are arbitrary or unreasonable. Under the departmental promotion rules, 25% of the posts of Inspector of State Tax are reserved for departmental promotion, and 25% of the posts of Assistant Taxation Officer are similarly reserved for departmental promotion. Employees possessing a bachelor's degree are eligible for promotion to the post of Inspector of State Tax, whereas only those possessing a bachelor's degree in commerce are eligible for promotion to the post of Assistant Taxation Officer. This distinction is founded on the qualifications required and the nature of the statutory functions assigned to each post.
A bachelor's degree in commerce is an essential qualification for appointment to the post of Assistant Taxation Officer through direct recruitment, and consequently no person can be considered eligible for promotion to the said post without possessing such a qualification. The requirement of a bachelor's degree in commerce for promotion to the post of Assistant Taxation Officer is, therefore, neither arbitrary nor unreasonable, but a valid and essential eligibility criterion consistent with the qualification prescribed for direct recruitment to the post.
It is well settled that prescription of qualifications for a post, and the classification of one post distinctly from another seemingly similar post, is a matter of recruitment and administrative policy lying within the domain of the employer/executive; it is no part of the function of judicial review to expand or rewrite the ambit of qualifications so prescribed, or to equate two posts merely because their duties appear, on the surface, to overlap. This precise proposition stands settled by the Supreme Court in Union of India v. Indian Navy Civilian Design Officers Association and Anr., Civil Appeal No. 8329 of 2011, decided on 22.02.2023, where the Court, dealing with a challenge to the differential pay-scale of two posts (Junior Design Officers and Civilian Technical Officers (Design)) whose duties were contended by the respondent-association to be identical and to have historically carried the same pay-scale, set aside the concurrent findings of the Central Administrative Tribunal and the High Court equating the two posts, and held as follows:
"In view of the afore-stated legal position, it clearly emerges that though the doctrine "equal pay for equal work" is not an abstract doctrine and is capable of being enforced in a Court of Law, the equal pay must be for equal work of equal value. The equation of posts and determination of pay scales is the primary function of the Executive and not of the Judiciary. The Courts therefore should not enter upon the task of job evaluation which is generally left to the expert bodies like the Pay Commissions which undertake rigorous exercise for job evaluation after taking into consideration several factors like the nature of work, the duties, accountability and responsibilities attached to the posts, the extent of powers conferred on the persons holding a particular post, the promotional avenues, the Statutory rules governing the conditions of service, the horizontal and vertical relativities with similar jobs etc. It may be true that the nature of work involved in two posts may sometimes appear to be more or less similar, however, if the classification of posts and determination of pay scale have reasonable nexus with the objective or purpose sought to be achieved, namely, the efficiency in the administration, the Pay Commissions would be justified in recommending and the State would be justified in prescribing different pay scales for the seemingly similar posts. A higher pay scale to avoid stagnation or resultant frustration for lack of promotional avenues or frustration due to longer duration of promotional avenues is also an acceptable reason for pay differentiation. It is also a well-accepted position that there could be more than one grade in a particular service. The classification of posts and the determination of pay structure, thus falls within the exclusive domain of the Executive, and the Courts or Tribunals cannot sit in appeal over the wisdom of the Executive in prescribing certain pay structure and grade in a particular service."
Applying this ratio to the facts of the present case, the classification between Commercial Tax Inspector and Taxation Assistant, insofar as it prescribes Commerce graduation for the latter, is founded on the intelligible differentia of the accounts and taxation oriented content of the duties historically associated with the post of Taxation Assistant since its very insertion in Schedule-V in 2008, a nexus which the employer was entitled to draw in its administrative wisdom while designing the recruitment framework for a specialised revenue post. The mere fact that, post the introduction of the GST regime, the day-to-day functional overlap between the two posts has increased, and that both posts have since been placed in the same pay scale by the Pay Commission, does not by itself render the qualification differential constitutionally infirm a contention squarely answered by the ratio extracted above, since the nature of work appearing "more or less similar" does not, by itself, invalidate a classification that bears a reasonable nexus with the object sought to be achieved, that being squarely a matter left to executive policy. It is also of significance, and squarely answers the "class within a class" argument urged by the petitioners, that the qualification of Commerce graduation applies uniformly to every aspirant for the post of Taxation Assistant whether competing through direct recruitment under Schedule-III or through the Limited Departmental Competitive Examination under Schedule-V so that there is no discrimination inter se amongst aspirants for that very post; the differentiation, such as it is, operates only as between two distinct posts, which the employer was entitled to treat differently having regard to the nature of duties, and does not offend Article 14. Point (I) is accordingly answered against the petitioners.
The Limited Departmental Competitive Examination, being a mode of promotion-cum-selection reserved exclusively for departmental candidates, is itself in the nature of an exception carved out to the general rule of direct recruitment, and it is for the employer to devise a rational method of assessing merit for such a channel. The award of 300 marks for a two-paper written examination and 100 marks for assessment of ACRs of the preceding five years by a Committee comprising senior officers of the Department cannot, on the face of it, be said to be excessive, unreasonable, or lacking in objective standards, particularly when the ACR-based component constitutes only one-fourth of the aggregate marks and is intended to supplement not supplant the written examination in gauging suitability for a post that also carries administrative and supervisory responsibilities. The apprehension voiced by the petitioners, that an ACR grading may later be revised pursuant to a representation after the select list is drawn, or that ACR gradings may carry an element of subjectivity, does not, without more, demonstrate that the Rule itself is arbitrary; such contingencies, at best, furnish grounds for redressal in an individual case of demonstrated prejudice, through appropriate representation or challenge to a specific ACR entry, and cannot found a case for striking down the Rule in the abstract. No instance of actual bias, mala fide, or manifestly perverse grading has been pleaded or demonstrated by any of the petitioners in relation to their own service record. Point (II) is accordingly answered against the petitioners.
The grievance regarding the alleged silence of the Rules qua probationary employees is speculative and premature. No petitioner has pleaded that he or she is presently working on probation and has been permitted, or denied, participation in the Limited Departmental Examination on that count. A writ court does not adjudicate hypothetical or anticipatory grievances divorced from a concrete factual matrix; should any actually aggrieved probationary employee be permitted or denied participation contrary to the Rules, it shall be open to such employee to seek appropriate redressal in accordance with law. Point (III) is accordingly answered against the petitioners, without prejudice to any such individual remedy.
It is not disputed that a Coordinate Bench of this Court, in W.P. No. 25920/2023, has already examined and rejected an identical challenge to the very Rules of 2007 and the very advertisement dated 19.09.2023, holding that prescription of educational qualification and eligibility criteria lies within the domain of the employer, that no material was placed to show the prescription to be tailor-made to favour any class, and that allocation of 300 marks for the written examination and 100 marks for ACR assessment did not suffer from any infirmity. Judicial discipline requires that a subsequent Bench of coordinate strength, in the absence of any demonstrated per incuriam infirmity or subsequent change in the legal position, ought not to take a contrary view merely because the matter is re-agitated by different petitioners; nothing has been shown to this Court that would warrant departure from the view already taken, a conclusion that stands further fortified, rather than displaced, by the settled position reiterated in Union of India v. Indian Navy Civilian Design Officers Association (supra). Point (IV) is accordingly answered against the petitioners, and in favour of the binding effect of the Coordinate Bench decision.
Independent of the above, the petition also fails on the ground of delay and laches. The notification amending the qualification for Taxation Assistant is dated 29.01.2010; it was never assailed until 2023, a lapse of nearly thirteen years, during which period successive amendments (2011, 2015) were carried out on the very Schedule without demur, and the classification between the two feeder posts was even carried forward into the promotional avenue of Assistant Commercial Tax Officer vide notification dated 06.04.2013. A challenge to subordinate legislation of this nature, which has held the field for over a decade, informed successive recruitment and promotion cycles, and generated settled expectations amongst similarly placed employees who did qualify under the amended criterion, cannot be entertained at the belated stage of a fresh advertisement issued years later, particularly when no satisfactory explanation for the inordinate delay has been furnished. Stale claims of this character, especially where interference would unsettle recruitment processes and the legitimate expectations of third parties, are ordinarily discountenanced by courts exercising writ jurisdiction. Point (V) is accordingly also answered against the petitioners.
In view of the findings recorded above, none of the grounds urged by the petitioners whether founded on Article 14, Article 16, the alleged arbitrariness of the ACR marking scheme, or the alleged lacuna concerning probationers survive scrutiny, and the challenge to the notification dated 29.01.2010, to Clause 5 of Schedule-V as amended on 20.07.2023, and to the advertisement/rule book dated 19.09.2023 consequently fails.
Accordingly, the writ petition is dismissed. The interim relief, if any, granted earlier stands vacated. Respondents shall be at liberty to proceed further with the selection process pursuant to the advertisement dated 19.09.2023 in accordance with the Rules of 2007, as amended. There shall be no order as to costs.
Let photocopy of this order be placed in connected case.
Certified copy, as per rules.