equal opportunity on matters of public employment enshrined in constitution of india with decided cases

 

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY ON MATTERS OF PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT ENSHRINED IN CONSTITUTION OF INDIA WITH DECIDED CASES

Article 16 of constitution of india reads as follows:

1.  Equality of opportunity for all citizens in matters relating to employment or appointment to any office under the state.

2.  No citizen shall, on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, descent, place of birth, residence or any of them be ineligible for, or discriminated against in respect of, any employment or office under the state.

3.  Nothing in this article shall prevent parliament from making any law prescribing, in regard to a class or classes of employment or appointment to an office [under the government of, or any local or other authority within, a state or union territory] prior to such employment or appointment.

4.  Nothing in this article shall prevent the state from making any provision for the reservation of appointments or posts in favour of any backward class of citizens which, in the opinion of the state, is not adequately represented in the services under the state.

[4-A] Nothing in this article shall prevent the state from making any provision for reservation [in matters of promotion, with consequential seniority, to any class] or classes of posts in the services under the state in favour of the scheduled castes and the  scheduled tribes which in the opinion of the state are not adequately represented in the services under the state]

[4-B] Nothing in this article shall prevent the state from considering any unfilled vacancies of a year which are reserved for being filled up in that year in accordance with any provision for reservation made under clause [4] or clause [4-A] as a separate class of vacancies to be filled up in any succeeding year to years and such class of vacancies shall not be considered together with the vacancies of the year in which they are being filled up for determining the ceiling of fifty percent, reservation on total number of vacancies of that year]

5.  Nothing in this article shall affect the operation of any law which provides that the incumbent of an office in connection with the affairs of any religious or denominational institution or any member of the governing body thereof shall be a person professing a particular religion or belonging to a particular denomination.

DECIDED CASES;

Equality of opportunity in matters of employment can be predicted only as between persons who are either seeking the same employment or have obtained the same employment, and that ‘equality of opportunity in matters of employment under Article 16[1] means equality between members of separate independent classes’. Thus in All india station masters Association V General manager, Central Railway, a rule enabling guards to be promoted to higher grade station masters than the road side station masters was held not to be violative of Article 16 as road side station masters and guards were recruited and trained separately and had separate avenues of promotion; they belong to two distinct and separate classes between whom there was no scope for predicating equality of opportunity in matters of promotion. Similarly Article 16 does not forbid the creation of different grades in the government service. Thus where the rules made income tax officers of class I eligible for appointment as assistant commissioners, but did not make income tax officers class II eligible for appointment as assistant commissioner, it was held that there could be no question of denial of equality of opportunity. But if different standards of promotion are laid down in relation to the same class of income tax officers Article 16 would be violated.

In C.B. Muthamma V Union of india, a provision in service rules require a female employee to obtain the permission of the government in writing before her marriage is solemnized and denying her the right to be promoted on the ground that the candidate was married a women was held to be discriminatory against woman and hence un- constitutional. The petitioner was denied promotion to grade I of the Indian foreign service only on this ground. However, the court made it clear that it does not mean that the man and woman are equal in all occupations and in all situations and do not exclude the need to pragmatise where the requirements of particular employment, the sensitivities of sex or the particularities of social sectors of the handicaps of either sex may compel selectivity. But save where the differentiation is demonstrable, the rule of equality must govern.

In Air india V Nargesh Meerza the petitioner challenged the validity of the regulations under which they could retire at the age of 35 years or if they got married within four years of their service or on first pregnancy on the ground that they were discriminatory and violative of Articles 14,15 and 16 of the constitution. While the court held that the provisions on pregnancy bar and the retirement and the option of the managing director were unconstitutional as being unreasonable and arbitrary and violative of Article 14, it upheld the validity of the provision prohibiting the Air Hostesses  to marry within four years of their service as there was no unreasonableness and arbitrariness in that provision. It is by all standards a ‘very sound and salutary provision’. Apart from improving the health of the air hostess, it helps a good deal in the promotion and boosting up of our family planning programme. Secondly, if a woman maries near about the age of 20 to 23 years, she becomes fully mature and there is chance of such a marriage proving a success, all things being equal.