JUDGMENT
Hima Kohli, J.
1. The present writ petition has been filed by the petitioner praying inter alia for setting aside orders dated 27.4.2005 and 14.2.2006 issued by respondent No. 3 and 4 respectively as also for directions to the respondents to appoint the petitioner as Assistant Manager(Technical) in the grade of Rs. 6,500-10,500/- with retrospective effect from 28.2.2005.
2. Briefly narrated, the facts of the case are that the petitioner was offered the post of Assistant Manager (Technical) Group-B Non-Ministerial/Ministerial by respondent No. 3, Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay Institute for the Physically Handicapped, vide letter dated 15.2.2005. One of the terms and conditions of the appointment of the petitioner to the post on temporary basis was contained in Clause 8 of the aforesaid letter which states as below:
Your appointment will be subject to your being found medically fit for appointment to the Post of Assistant Manager(Tech.) and arrangements for your medical examination will be made soon after your report for duty in the Institute. Your appointment is liable to be terminated if you are not found medically fit.
3. A letter dated 7.3.2005 was addressed by Chief Medical Officer of the RML Hospital to the respondent No. 3 calling upon it to clarify as to whether colour vision was required for the post of Assistant Manager (Technical) and if so, whether low grade or high grade. The aforesaid letter was duly replied to by respondent No. 3 vide letter dated 18.3.2005 informing the CMO, RML Hospital that the candidate should have high grade colour vision for the post of Assistant Manager(Technical). Thereafter, the medical examination of the petitioner was done by Medical Board constituted by Medical Superintendent, RML Hospital, which gave a report to the effect that the petitioner suffered from low grade colour vision. As a result, the respondent No. 3 rejected the candidature of the petitioner by informing him that he had been declared medically unfit and his order of appointment to the post of Assistant Manager (Technical) was treated as cancelled.
4. Aggrieved by the aforementioned rejection order and cancellation of his appointment, the petitioner filed a writ petition in this Court, being WP(C) 19573/2005 which was disposed of vide order dated 3.10.2005 with the directions that the petitioner be subjected to another medical test by a separate Medical Board which should be drawn from amongst the doctors in Safdarjung Hospital. Pursuant to the aforementioned order, the petitioner presented himself before the panel of doctors constituted by MS, Safdarjung Hospital, who submitted their report to the respondent No. 3 and informed it that the petitioner had been examined and was found to have low grade colour vision. It was observed that the post is technical and required high grade colour vision. The petitioner was, therefore, declared unfit by the Medical Board. A copy of the aforesaid intimation dated 14.2.2006 was also forwarded to the petitioner herein, which resulted in the petitioner filing the present writ petition.
5. Counsel for the petitioner submits that the post in question was, in fact, not a technical post and that when the initial advertisement was issued by respondent No. 3, the name of the post was Assistant Manager (Press). He also seeks to rely on the Handbook for Personnel Officers issued by the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms, Cabinet Secretariat, New Delhi, to state that the post in question was a Central Civil Services Class-II post of non-technical nature and that the petitioner was therefore, not required to meet the standards required by a technical post. He also draws the attention of this Court to Regulation 6(g) of the Regulations laid down in the aforesaid handbook which deals with colour vision, and submits that the said Regulation requires a Ministry/Department to inform the medical board as to whether a candidate for a particular service requires colour vision examination or not and that it is only cases of the services concerned with safety of public that higher grade of colour vision is essential, but in others, lower grade of colour vision should be considered sufficient.
6. Learned Counsel for the petitioner further states that the respondent No. 3 is governed by the aforesaid handbook and thus any attempt on its part to describe the post offered to the petitioner as ‘Technical’ is contrary to the aforesaid Regulations and thus, it was not necessary for the petitioner to have a higher grade of colour vision and that lower grade of colour vision was sufficient for his post, which was otherwise not ‘Technical’ in nature.
7. Per contra, learned Counsel for the respondent No. 3 submits that the respondent No. 3 is not governed by the aforesaid handbook of Personnel Officers inasmuch as the respondent No. 3 is a society registered under the Societies Act and the appointments made in the respondent No. 3 do not require any ratification by the Government of India, the appointing authority being the Director of the Institute. It is therefore stated that the respondent No. 3 not being a department of the Government of India, the instructions contained in the handbook in question would not apply mutates mutants to the respondent No. 3. It is further stated on behalf of the respondent that without prejudice to the aforementioned submissions and even assuming that the said instructions are applicable to the respondent No. 3, the post in question to which the petitioner was offered appointment is technical in nature and thus, the petitioner would be covered under classification A(2) of Annexure-I of the Instructions which takes within its fold, technical officers. He submits that this Court has also to examine the nature of duties to be performed by the petitioner for holding the post in question which entails amongst others, proof reading of material published in the press, checking the colour scheme of material printed, etc., which would be difficult to distinguish for a person suffering from low grade colour vision and thus, the post in question necessitates the colour vision of the candidate to be of a high grade.
8. I have heard the counsels for the parties and have also carefully perused the documents placed on the record. The pleas raised on behalf of the petitioner that the instructions contained in the handbook are applicable to the respondent No. 3 on the ground that the post in question is described as a Group-B Non-Ministerial/Ministerial post in the Institute, is not sustainable for the reason that the Regulations in question have classified various services under two categories, namely, technical and non-technical, and in the category of “Non-technical” is included “other Central Civil Services Class I & II”. Thus, even assuming that the Regulations contained in the handbook could be applicable to the respondent No. 3, the post of Assistant Manager (Technical) described as a Group-B Non-Ministerial/Ministerial post in the offer of appointment dated 15.2.2005 issued to the petitioner, will at best fall in Central Civil Services Class-II post. Regulation 6(g) permits the department concerned to inform the Medical Board that the candidate for the non-technical service/post is for a service requiring colour vision examination or not. In these circumstances, the respondent No. 3 cannot be faulted in stipulating high grade colour vision for the post of Assistant Manager (Technical), as done in the present case.
9. It can also not be lost sight of that the aforesaid submission was made by the petitioner in the earlier writ petition filed by him before this Court, which was disposed of , vide orders dated 3rd October, 2005. In the order dated 3rd October, 2005, mention has been made of the arguments raised on behalf of the petitioner in respect of the handbook for Personnel Officers issued by the Government of India. However, after taking notice of the same, the Court deemed it appropriate to subject the petitioner to yet another medical test by a separate Medical Board to establish as to whether he suffered from low grade colour vision or not as indicated in the report of the earlier medical board constituted by the MS, RML Hospital. Fact remains that if the petitioner was aggrieved by the aforesaid order and non-consideration of the instructions contained in the handbook in question, then the remedy available to him was by preferring an appeal against the aforesaid order. However, the petitioner chose to present himself before the Medical Board in terms of the order dated 3rd October, 2005 and has approached this Court only when an identical report was submitted by the subsequently constituted Medical Board. Thus, the petitioner himself waived his right to challenge the procedure adopted by the respondents of subjecting the petitioner to a test of colour vision on the guidelines laid down by the respondent No. 3 which stipulated high grade colour vision. Merely because the petitioner was not declared fit by the Medical Board constituted subsequently, cannot be a ground for him to turn around and seek to place reliance on the handbook in question by insisting that the said requirement of high grade colour vision was not applicable to non-technical posts and was only meant with services concerned for the safety of public.
10. There is force in the contention of the counsel for the respondent that matters of such a nature which require medical fitness should be best left to experts in the field and that ordinarily the court should not interfere in the reports of the Medical Panels/Boards constituted in this regard, being specialist bodies. It is settled law that where norms, standards and requirement are fixed by technical bodies having expertise, courts should not interfere and permit deviation, and strict adherence to the standards and norms should be the norm and not an exception. Reliance in this regard may be placed on a recent judgment rendered by a Division Bench of this Court in the case of Raghukul Tilak v. UOI and Anr. reported in 2007 IX AD (Delhi) 508.
11. In the present case, the petitioner has undergone not one, but two medical examinations conducted by two different Medical Boards, both of which found the petitioner medically unfit for the post in question. The respondent No. 3 is justified in satisfying itself about the medical fitness of a candidate before appointing him to a post. The eligibility criteria for the post of Assistant Manager (Technical) including the medical standards required are prescribed by the respondent No. 3 keeping in view the nature of job and the duties and responsibilities attributable to the said post and the medical examination of the petitioner was also conducted by an expert body, and therefore, it is not appropriate for this Court to interfere either with the eligibility criteria so prescribed, or the findings of the medical board.
12. Also, it needs to be further noted that in the writ petition, there is no description as to the nature of the duties required to be performed by an Assistant Manager (Technical). However, a perusal of the advertisement issued by the respondent No. 3 in the Employment News, enclosed with the writ petition, shows that a candidate for the aforesaid post is required to essentially have a diploma in printing and allied trades from a recognized technical institution in India or abroad and 5 years experience in a responsible capacity in a well established printing house, including two years in a supervisory capacity. The candidate is also desired to have a degree from a recognized university as also practical experience in litho and offset printing, layout designing and block making department. All the aforesaid qualifications as also requirements are matters which are to be decided by the employer and if the employer, the respondent No. 3 herein, has chosen to designate the post in question as ‘Technical’, and stipulate high grade colour vision for a candidate applying to the said post, this Court, while exercising its power to judicial review under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, is not expected to go behind the reasons for stipulating the desired qualifications or the standard of colour vision fixed by the respondent No. 3 in this regard. The said task is best left to the employer.
13. Counsel for the petitioner also seeks to place reliance on an employment notice issued by the Indian Railways to state that the post of Section Engineer (Printing) under the Railways requires colour vision as one of the medical standards only for posts falling above “B-2” category and that for posts below “B-2” category, there is no requirement of colour vision at all. The aforesaid advertisement referred to by the petitioner cannot take his case any further for the reason that the medical standards of fitness fixed by the Railways for the post of Section Engineer (Printing) cannot be held to be analogous to the requirements stipulated for the post of Assistant Manager (Technical) in the respondent No. 3 and no parity can be drawn on the said basis.
14. For all the aforesaid reasons, this Court does not deem it appropriate to interfere either with the order dated 27.4.2005 passed by the respondent No. 3, or with the findings of the Medical Board constituted under the directions of this Court in WP(C) No. 19573/2005, and so communicated to the respondent NO.3 and the petitioner, vide letter dated 14.2.2006.
15. The writ petition therefore, fails. There shall be no orders as to costs.