BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Friday held that courts are not expert bodies who can give a finding that a Bachelors degree in Engineering can be treated as equivalent to a Bachelor’s degree in Science. The court said it is for expert bodies like the University Grants Commission to arrive at such a finding, as the qualification required for the post of ‘Assistant’ in the BWSSB was BSc.
The Supreme Court has held that the State, as a public employer, has to take into account social perspectives that require creation of job opportunities across societal structures, the court added. Setting aside the single judge’s order, a division bench of Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice S Vishwajith Shetty allowed the writ appeal filed by BWSSB, questioning the order passed by the single judge.
On September 3, 2020, the single judge had granted the prayer by S Ambarish Kumar and seven others to consider their candidature also, as they are BE graduates, and an engineering degree should be treated as a degree in science.
BWSSB had issued notifications on August 24, 2018, for Non Hyderabad-Karnataka area and Hyderabad-Karnataka area, inviting applications for various posts, including the post of ‘Assistant’. The qualification prescribed was “a degree in Arts/Commerce/Science of a recognised University. One year duration Course in Computer Basics”.
Ambarish Kumar and others had moved court, praying for a direction to BWSSB that their engineering degree be considered equivalent to Arts, Science or Commerce degree. Against this, BWSSB filed an appeal on the ground that a degree in Engineering cannot be treated as a degree in Science, as Engineering and Science are two different disciplines.