Madras High Court· 31 July 2026

Under service regulations requiring a pass in the Government Technical Examination in Accountancy by the Lower and Higher Grades, is a candidate who passes only the Higher Grade disqualified?

K.Puvaneswari v. The Chairman and Managing Director

WP No. 12018 of 2015 · WP No. 12018 of 2015
Coram: Justice T.Vinod Kumar

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Answer

No. The prescription of passing the examination in the Lower and Higher Grades is intended to provide a facility to a candidate to appear and pass the exam in different tiers, and a candidate who appears directly for the Higher Grade examination and is declared successful in one go cannot be disqualified for not separately passing the Lower Grade. Insisting otherwise is a hyper technical approach that defies basic logic and is a facet of arbitrariness.

Headnote

Tamil Nadu Electricity Board Service Regulations — Regulation 94 — Annexure III — Promotion — Prescribed qualification — Government Technical Examination in Accountancy — Panel for promotion — Tamil Nadu Electricity Board Service Regulations — Regulation 94 — Prescribed qualification — Higher Grade passed directly — Held: A prescription of passing the Government Technical Examination in Accountancy in the Lower and Higher Grades affords a facility to qualify in different tiers; a candidate who passes the Higher Grade directly is not thereby disqualified. (¶24, 25) Service Regulations — Exemption from Accountancy Examination — Employer debarred from contending to the contrary — Held further: Having itself granted exemption from passing the Government Technical Examination in Accountancy for the purpose of departmental promotion, the employer is debarred from contending to the contrary against an employee who acquired that qualification. (¶28) Service Regulations — Panel for promotion — Hyper technical stand a facet of arbitrariness — Held further: A stand denying inclusion in the panel for promotion for which no rationale or valid basis exists is a hyper technical approach and a facet of arbitrariness, and the exclusion cannot be held to be valid. Writ petition allowed. (¶26, 30)

In the Court's own words

Paragraph 24The second qualification prescribed for being promoted to the post of Assistant Audit Officer is to pass the Government Technical Examination in Accountancy by Lower and Higher Grades. Admittedly, the petitioner had passed the Government Technical Examination in Accountancy in the year 2011. Though the respondents contended that the Regulations contemplate a pass in both the Lower and Higher Grade examinations and that the petitioner having passed only the Higher Grade examination, and therefore does not satisfy the prescribed qualification, it is to be noted that the prescription of requirement of passing the Government Technical Examination in Accountancy in the Lower and Higher Grades is intended to provide a facility to a candidate to appear and pass the exam in different tiers. However, if a candidate appears directly for the Higher Grade examination and is declared successful in one go, the benefit of getting qualified in a different tier cannot be put against a candidate who had qualified the higher exam directly, so as to disqualify such a candidate, who has the ability to sit for higher examination directly without going through the process of appearing for lower grade one time and higher grade subsequently.

Paragraph 25Thus, merely because the petitioner did not separately pass the Lower Grade examination cannot be a ground to hold that she lacks the prescribed qualification, when she has already qualified in the Higher Grade examination. Therefore, the contention of the respondents that the petitioner is ineligible as she does not possesses Lower Grade does not merit acceptance. The aforesaid stand taken by the respondent Corporation is too a hyper technical approach adopted, taking advantage of in elegant language used in the regulations, which, as noted above, is intended to benefit the employees, but also defies the basic logic, reasoning and is against the basic common-sense, needless to say is a facet of arbitrariness.

Acts & Sections

Regulation 94 Tamil Nadu Electricity Board Service RegulationsAnnexure III Tamil Nadu Electricity Board Service Regulations

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Also decided in this judgment

Can an employer that granted exemption from a departmental examination for promotion later contend that the exempted qualification is invalid?

Plain-language answer prepared by the LexStreak Editorial Desk — verify against the judgment. Source: Madras High Court. Corrections