Citation: Vinayak Popat Wale & Ors. v. Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation & Anr., | 2026:BHC-AS:39716-DB
The employer decides what qualification is essential for a post, and courts cannot rewrite recruitment rules or treat a higher degree as equal to the prescribed diploma. A degree holder who lacks the required diploma can be excluded, if the classification is rational and not arbitrary, since a degree is not automatically a “higher” version of a diploma in a different stream.
The Bombay High Court has held that engineering degree holders cannot claim eligibility for BMC’s Junior Engineer posts when the recruitment rules require a diploma. Candidates with only a degree challenged BMC’s advertisement of 25 November 2024 for Junior Engineer (Civil) and (Mechanical and Electrical), saying a higher qualification should automatically include a lower one. In December 2024, the High Court had allowed graduates to apply on an interim basis, but diploma holders approached the Supreme Court, which stayed that order and asked the High Court to decide the petition within eight weeks. Justices G.S. Kulkarni and Dr. Neela Gokhale rejected each argument of the graduates. The rule that deems computer knowledge for candidates holding “any degree or diploma” is only a computer-knowledge presumption and does not extend eligibility to degree holders. The Model Recruitment Rules, which say that candidates with higher qualifications are not disqualified, have not been adopted by BMC, and in any case only require clarity about minimum qualifications. The 2021 Government Resolution is superseded by BMC’s 2023 recruitment rules. Relying on the Supreme Court’s recent Firoz Mansuri ruling, the court held that the employer decides what qualification is needed for a post, and courts cannot declare a degree equal to a diploma or change eligibility conditions unless the rule is arbitrary or perverse. A degree is not an in-line “higher” version of a diploma, since the two train for different work, and BMC keeps separate posts of Junior Engineer (diploma) and Sub-Engineer (degree). The petition was dismissed, and BMC, which had paused the recruitment, was allowed to complete it immediately. A request to stay the order was rejected.