Employer cannot be compelled to lower cut off marks: SC

The Supreme Court has ruled that an employer has the right to fix cut-off marks for recruitment of staff and could not be directed to lower them unless it was arbitarily fixed.

A bench comprising Justice S B Sinha and Justice Harjit Singh Bedi observed that "once it was held that the appellants (employer) had the requisite jurisdiction to fix the cut-off marks, the necessary corollary thereof would be that it could not be directed to lower the same".

According to the apex court, it is for the employer or the expert body to determine the cut-off marks. The court, while exercising the power of judicial review, would not ordinarily interfere with it.

The apex court passed the ruling while setting aside a High Court order which directed the East-Coast Railways to lower the cut-off marks for general candidates to enable their consideration for the posts of gangmen in the SCs/STs
quota which remained unfilled due to lack of sufficient candidates from the community.

"The high court, in our opinion, committed a serious error in directing the appellants to lower the cut-off marks", the court said allowing an appeal by the East-Coast Railways against the high court's judgement.

ECR was aggrieved by the high court's judgment directing it to appoint the respondents (employees) by lowering the cut-off marks against the posts reserved for candidates belonging to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes.

The Railways had submitted in its appeal that in May 1998, 382 vacancies were advertised by it for the post of 'Gangman'.

The educational qualification for the candidates was prescribed at 8th class pass and they were required to be physically strong to carry out the job, the appeal submitted.

However, 54 posts reserved for the SC and ST candidates could not be filled up owing to non-availability of qualified eligible candidates, on which the direction for lowering the cut-off marks were issued by the high court.