Twenty-five-year-old Alok Ranjan got a rude shock when he realised that he could not take the Reserve Bank of India’s Grade B (General) Direct Recruitment officer exam. Despite being a qualified Chartered Accountant, Ranjan found himself ineligible to apply for the coveted job due to a new educational qualification criteria introduced by the central bank.

Under the revised norm, only those who have scored a minimum of 60 per cent marks in all three examinations — 10th, 12th and graduation — are eligible to take the RBI exam. Ranjan had secured 59.14 per cent in the 10th, 60.22 per cent in 12th and 60 per cent in B.Com and thereafter qualified as a CA.

Pranavkumar Gurav, too, faces a similar predicament. Despite scoring 77.86 per cent in 10th standard, 79.83 per cent in the 12th and 71 per cent in his Masters of Management Studies (Finance), he still finds himself ineligible because he scored 59.99 per cent while graduating as an engineer.

Writ petition filed

Now, Ranjan along with Gurav and two others has filed a writ petition in the Bombay High Court stating that the revised educational qualification criteria is arbitrary and not in the true spirit of Article 14 (equality before law) & 16 (equality of opportunity in matters of public employment) of The Constitution of India. The petitioners submitted that there are more than 50 boards at the 10th and 12th standard levels and over 700 universities, and that their marking patterns are different from each other.

They buttressed their case by referring to a Ministry of Human Resources Development report for the year 2010, which revealed that candidates securing 60 per cent or more in the 10th and 12th standards in States such as Assam and Tripura were not more than 10 per cent whereas it was 88 per cent in the case of the ICSE Board.

The RBI had issued an advertisement on October 5 calling for online registration of applications for the Grade B officer’s test. The last date for submitting applications is October 23. (The Hindu)