The Supreme Court of India, through a Bench comprising Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Vipul M. Pancholi , has set aside a judgment of the Madhya Pradesh High Court that upheld the termination of a contractual employee for allegedly lacking the requisite “Postgraduate degree in Statistics.” The Apex Court ruled that the qualification must be interpreted contextually and purposively. The Bench held that rejecting an M.Com. degree—which included Statistics as a principal subject—when no Government university in the State offered a specific “M.Com. (Statistics)” degree, amounted to “elevating form over substance.”

Background of the Case

The appellant, Laxmikant Sharma, applied for the post of Monitoring and Evaluation Consultant in the Water Support Organization (W.S.O.), State Wat

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