Open University Degree Valid for Promotion: Supreme Court Restores Tourist Officer’s Claim to Assistant Director Post

A bench of Justices Manoj Misra and Ujjal Bhuyan held that a degree obtained through distance education mode cannot bar promotion when earlier government orders recognised open university qualifications.

The Supreme Court on 22 August 2026 allowed the civil appeals of R.J. Gajendra Kumar, a Tourist Officer in the Tamil Nadu Tourism Department, holding him eligible for consideration for promotion to the post of Assistant Director of Tourism. The Court set aside the judgments of both the Division Bench and the Review Bench of the Madras High Court, restoring the Single Judge’s order of 16 August 2021. The central finding was that a degree obtained through the open university / distance education mode is not disqualified by the applicable rules, and that a plethora of government orders issued by Tamil Nadu over three decades cannot be read retroactively to strip employees of qualifications that were formally recognised when they were obtained.

How the Dispute Reached the Supreme Court

Gajendra Kumar was appointed as Junior Assistant in the Tourism Department on compassionate grounds on 25 May 1983 after the sudden death of his father, who had served as Receptionist Grade I in the same department. He could not complete the regular higher secondary course because of his father’s demise. While in service, he obtained permission from the Director of Tourism to enrol in the second year of the foundation course at Madurai Kamaraj Open University, which he completed in April 1984. He subsequently obtained a B.Com degree from the same university in October 1987, followed by a postgraduate diploma in Tourism in May 1993 and an M.Com degree in April 2003, all through the distance education mode.

He was appointed as Receptionist Grade II on 25 July 1990 and was temporarily promoted as Tourist Officer in 2011 under GO Ms No. 110 dated 1 August 2011, joining at New Delhi on 5 August 2011. His service as Tourist Officer was regularised with effect from 5 August 2011 vide GO Ms No. 224 dated 16 October 2017.

After nearly six years as Tourist Officer, he sought promotion to the post of Assistant Director of Tourism. The Additional Chief Secretary, Tourism, Culture and Religious Endowments Department, rejected his claim on 22 July 2020, holding that he was not qualified to hold even the feeder post of Tourist Officer because his degree had not been obtained in the standard 10+2+3 pattern. His writ petition before a Single Judge of the Madras High Court succeeded: the Single Judge set aside the order and directed that his name be placed in the seniority panel and that he be promoted if his juniors had already been promoted. The State appealed, and the Division Bench reversed the Single Judge by its judgment dated 6 June 2023. A review application was dismissed on 18 November 2024 by the Review Bench, though on a partly different ground. Gajendra Kumar then approached the Supreme Court by way of Special Leave Petitions, which were converted into Civil Appeals.

What the Division Bench and Review Bench Held

The Division Bench rested its decision on GO Ms No. 107 dated 18 August 2009, which prescribed the 10+2+3 degree pattern for appointment and promotion in Tamil Nadu public services, and on a clarificatory letter dated 3 December 2010 which stated that a degree obtained through an open university after a pre-foundation and two-year foundation course — without passing the 10th standard and the +2 examination in the regular stream — does not satisfy the conditions of GO Ms No. 107. The Division Bench concluded that Gajendra Kumar’s degree could not be recognised because he had not completed the higher secondary course in its entirety through the regular pattern of 10+2. On that basis, it held him ineligible not only for promotion to Assistant Director but also for holding the feeder post of Tourist Officer, though it stopped short of disturbing his actual service in that post.

The Review Bench took a materially different position. It held that his qualification up to the higher secondary stage was not a problem because his foundation course could be treated as equivalent to the +2 level. However, it then rejected his claim on the separate ground that his graduation had been obtained through the distance education mode rather than through a regular physical course. It also refused his estoppel argument, holding that a government’s permission to undergo a course during employment does not estop it from questioning whether the resulting qualification satisfies applicable rules.

The Supreme Court’s Analysis

Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, writing the judgment, identified two errors by the High Court. First, both Benches had diverted their attention to whether Gajendra Kumar was eligible to hold the feeder post of Tourist Officer, rather than addressing the actual question before them: whether he was eligible to be promoted to Assistant Director of Tourism. Nobody had challenged his promotion to Tourist Officer, in which he had served for more than fifteen years. The Court found it impermissible for the first respondent to “rake up the issue of eligibility of the appellant to hold the post of Tourist Officer” solely to deny him the benefit of promotion consideration.

Second, and independently, the Court examined the eligibility criteria for promotion to Assistant Director of Tourism under the applicable special rules. As per GO Ms No. 290 dated 18 June 1986 and the subsequent GO Ms No. 45 dated 27 February 1997, promotion to the post of Assistant Director of Tourism required: (i) a degree from a recognised university; (ii) a pass in the accounts test for executive officers; and (iii) one year’s experience as Tourist Officer in offices outside Tamil Nadu. The Court found that Gajendra Kumar satisfied all three criteria.

On the question of whether his open university degree was valid, the Court systematically traced the chain of government orders. GO Ms No. 528 dated 18 May 1985 had directed that the two-year foundation course of Madurai Kamaraj Open University be recognised as equivalent to the higher secondary (+2) course for entry into public services. GO Ms No. 180 dated 11 September 2000 further directed that degree courses offered through the open university system and recognised by the University Grants Commission be treated at par with regular stream degrees for the purpose of employment in public services. GO Ms No. 217 dated 8 September 2007 reiterated this position. These orders were in force when Gajendra Kumar completed his qualification and when he was appointed as Tourist Officer in 2011.

GO Ms No. 144 dated 20 November 2017 was the order that ultimately declared the foundation and pre-foundation courses not equivalent to the regular +2 course. The Court adopted and approved the reasoning of a Coordinate Bench of the Madras High Court in P. Thavam v. State of Tamil Nadu, noting that the special leave petition filed against that decision had been dismissed by the Supreme Court on 20 January 2023. The Madras High Court in P. Thavam had held that the cutoff date for invalidity of pre-foundation and foundation courses must be 20 November 2017, the date of GO Ms No. 144, because the pre-foundation course had been recognised since 1985 and had been considered valid for 24 years. The Court found this reasoning “sound and valid” and explicitly endorsed it.

The Court also found a fundamental flaw in the Review Bench’s approach. Explanation 1(b) to Section 25 of the Tamil Nadu Government Servants (Conditions of Service) Act, 2016 — which requires that a degree for appointment to public service be obtained after completion of SSLC and higher secondary course in the 10+2+3 pattern — came into force on 14 September 2016. Section 54 of the same Act is a saving clause protecting persons who were already members of a service on that date from adverse application of the Act’s provisions. The Court held that Explanation 1(b) to Section 25 does not operate against degrees obtained prior to 14 September 2016, in view of the saving clause. Moreover, nowhere in Explanation 1(b) or in any other provision is it stated that the degree must be obtained through a regular physical course rather than through the distance education mode. The Review Bench’s finding to the contrary was therefore an error without statutory basis.

The Court also referred to its earlier decisions in P. Mahendran v. State of Karnataka (1990) 1 SCC 411, which had established that statutory rules and amendments are prospective unless they expressly or by necessary implication operate retrospectively, and in Chandrakala Trivedi v. State of Rajasthan (2012) 3 SCC 129, which had held that the word “equivalent” must be given a reasonable meaning and that there must be some difference between what is equivalent and what is exact. The Court found both decisions applicable to the present facts.

On the Division Bench’s Direction Regarding Feeder Post Eligibility

The Court expressed specific concern about the Division Bench going so far as to declare that Gajendra Kumar was not eligible to have been promoted to Tourist Officer in the first place, even while declining to disturb his actual service. The Court found this observation unwarranted, given that his promotion to Tourist Officer had been regularised by a formal government order in 2017, nobody had ever challenged it, and the question of his eligibility for that post was simply not the issue before the courts. The first respondent had raised the issue of his eligibility to hold the feeder post only as a means of denying him promotion to the next level, which the Court found impermissible.

Order

The Civil Appeals were allowed. The Supreme Court set aside the judgment and order dated 6 June 2023 passed by the Division Bench of the Madras High Court in W.A. No. 1789 of 2022, as well as the order dated 18 November 2024 passed by the Review Bench in Review Application No. 308 of 2024. The judgment and order of the learned Single Judge dated 16 August 2021 — directing that Gajendra Kumar’s name be placed in the panel list in order of seniority and that he be promoted to the post of Assistant Director of Tourism if his juniors had been promoted in the meanwhile — was restored. The Court directed that his case shall now be considered for promotion in accordance with law. There was no order as to costs.