Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, July 6: High Court said that the educational qualification for promotion is permissible and it does not offend the rights as provided in the Constitution of India and refused the plea of nurses seeking promotion to the post of senior nurses on account of seniority and experience.
Justice Sanjeev Kumar while deciding the pleas of various nurses working in SKIMS said there should be left no doubt in the mind of anybody that the classification on the basis of educational qualification for promotion is permissible in law and does not offend Article 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India.
“The prescription of higher qualification like in the instant case, the qualification of B.Sc Nursing/M.Sc Nursing for promotion to the post of Senior Staff Nurse from the post of Staff Nurse is essentially for efficient discharge of duties of higher post. Therefore, nothing prevents respondent-SKIMS to prescribe higher technical qualification for the purpose of promotion to the next higher post”, Justice Kumar said.
Court said the plea of counsel for the petitioners that classification made by the respondent-SKIMS in the instant case does not have any rational nexus with the object sought to be achieved, cannot be accepted on the face and also having regard to the nature of duties a Senior Staff Nurse or higher Technical posts in the Health Sector, are required to perform.
“Admittedly, the Staff Nurse possessing qualification of three years Diploma in General Nursing and Staff Nurses possessing qualification of B.Sc Nursing, cannot be at par and therefore, are unequal because of their qualification”, reads the judgment.
Court has made it clear that it is not obligatory for respondents to treat these two unequal as equals. Court while apex court said the similar plea, as raised by the learned counsel for the petitioners herein, has been negated by the apex court where a similar argument was raised on behalf of the respondents that all the persons working as Senior Assistants whether graduate or undergraduate constitute a homogeneous group, therefore, there cannot be any differentiation amongst them on the basis of educational qualification.
Court for the foregoing reasons, found no merit in these petitions and dismissed the same. The facts leading to filing of two writ petitions by the nurses of SKIMS who were seeking promotion to the post of Senior Nurses was that they are serving in the Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences Soura, Srinagar (SKIMS) as Staff Nurses and claimed to have rendered their services as Staff Nurses for last 27 years.
All of them, at the time of their appointment, were matriculates and possessing three years diploma in General Nursing and Midwifery and their case was that right from the date of their appointment till 1998, there were no recruitment rules issued by the respondent Institute and it was only on 22.05.1998, that the respondents promulgated the Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences Subordinate Services Recruitment Rules 1998 and as per Rule 5 of the Rules of 1998, no person was eligible for appointment or promotion to any post in any class, category or grade in the service unless he possessed the qualification as laid down in the rules.
It is this prescription of minimum qualification of B.Sc Nursing provided in the rules for promotion to the post of Sr. Staff Nurse, the petitioners are aggrieved of and have challenged the same on the ground that the classification made by the respondents between a Staff Nurse possessing three years Diploma in General Nursing and Midwifery and a Staff Nurse possessing the qualification of B.Sc Nursing for the purpose of making promotion to the post of Sr. Staff Nurse, falls foul of Article 14 and 16 of the constitution and therefore, the same is not permissible.
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