Rajasthan High Court Upholds Mandate On Possession Of 'Crafts Instructor Certificate' For Appointment As Junior Trainer

The Rajasthan High Court dismissed the writ petitions filed challenging the constitutional validity of an amendment to the Rajasthan Technical Training Subordinate Service Rules mandating possession of relevant National Craft Instructor Certificates (NCIC)/Crafts Instructor Training Scheme (CITS) Certificate for the post of Junior Instructors.The division bench of Justice Inderjeet Singh and Justice Anand Sharma opined that as per the notification issued by the State to amend the Rules, the requirement of possessing NCIC/CITS certificates were only for those traders where the courses under CITS were available. It was not mandatory in all cases, and an exception was carved out for the contingencies where the courses under CITS were not available. “Merely, for the reason that Schedule sought to be substituted vide Notification dated 01.09.2023 is silent in respect of manner of relaxation to be granted qua possessing NCIC/CITS certificate, even for the trades where CITS courses are not available, would not invalidate the Notification dated 01.09.2023 for the reason that it goes without saying that O.M. dated 30.06.2023 issued by the Central Government would govern the field, where the State Rules are silent.”The major challenge against the amendment was in light of an Office Memorandum issued by the Directorate General of Training, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (OM) in 2023, mandating the NCIC/CITS. It was the case of the petitioners that as per the OM, the requirement was not mandatory at the time of recruitment, and there was an option to acquire the certificate even after appointment within the prescribed time. The petitioner submitted that since the matter of “Technical education” fell under Concurrent List (Entry 25), as well as Union List (Entry 63, 64, 65 and 66), in case Central Government enacted any law while exercising powers under the Union List, such law laid down by Central Government would prevail over the State Law. In this light, it was argued that since the OM did not made the requirement of NCIC/CITS mandatory, the notification was not in consonance with the OM, was repugnant and ultra vires.In the reply filed by the Government, it was submitted that the notification did not intend to lower down the standard of qualification and training set by the Central Government. Rather the same was raised by the notification. Hence, it could not said to be against the intent and spirit of the Central Government. It was further argued that the OM was being misinterpreted by the petitioners, and the alleged relaxation was not absolute but only in such cases where there was unavailability of the CITS courses. And submitted that the same relaxation was also sought to be put in place by the notification, to make the requirement mandatory for only those trades where the courses under CITS were available. Hence, there was no repugnancy between the two. After hearing the contentions, the Court firstly held that considering that as per Entry 25 of the Concurrent List, the State Government was well competent to frame laws regarding technical education in the State, the Notification could not be said to be ultra vires the Constitution since there was no question of lack of competency. Further, the Court held that fair reading of the OM revealed that the mandate of CITS for vocational instructor was already present earlier. However, there were several representations by the States and other stakeholders for revisiting such requirement where there were no availability of CITS courses. Upon recommendations of experts, on account of non-availability of CITS courses/CITS trainings in many trades, an exception was carved in the OM. Where CITS qualified candidates were not available due to either non-existence of CITS course or non-receipt of sufficient number of application from any CITS qualified candidates, candidates may be recruited with relevant technical qualifications without them possessing the CITS qualification. The certificate could be procured within the period prescribed, post recruitment. The Court highlighted that, “meticulous analysis of O.M. dated 30.06.2023, it would come out that possessing NCIC/CITS certificate is an essential qualification for recruitment on the post of Instructor in ITI. The relaxation to possess such qualification even after selection is also not applicable in all the cases and a rider has been put that such relaxation of possessing qualification during service can be given only in the cases where CITS courses and CITS trained candidates in a particular trade are not available.”The Court perused the notification by the State and held that while the requirement of NCIC/CITS certificate was inserted, it was clarified that the same was only for those trades where courses under CITS were available. An exception was carved for contingency where the courses under CITS were not available. The Court further held that even though it was assumed for once that no such...

Rajasthan High Court Upholds Mandate On Possession Of 'Crafts Instructor Certificate' For Appointment As Junior Trainer

Nupur Agrawal

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