Policy relaxation and pleadings rule upheld as long service-based qualification waiver was found rational.

The SC held that a court cannot invalidate a policy relaxation on grounds not pleaded where the challenge is confined to its application, not its validity. It further upheld the Government's relaxation dispensing with postgraduate qualification for teachers with 18 years' service, treating long experience as a rational policy basis for granting selection-scale benefits. The High Court had therefore gone beyond the pleadings in testing the circular itself. The appeal succeeded, the High Court's order was set aside, and the administrative order rejecting the teacher's claim was restored, with amounts already paid protected from recovery.

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Issues: (i) Whether the High Court could examine and invalidate the relaxation contained in the circular when no challenge to the circular itself had been raised; (ii) Whether the Government's relaxation dispensing with postgraduate qualification for teachers completing 18 years of service was irrational.

Issue (i): Whether the High Court could examine and invalidate the relaxation contained in the circular when no challenge to the circular itself had been raised.

Analysis: The challenge before the High Court was confined to the applicability of the relaxation to the respondent. The validity of the circular granting relaxation was not in issue. In such circumstances, the High Court could not travel beyond the pleadings and test the circular itself.

Conclusion: The High Court was not justified in examining the validity of the circular.

Issue (ii): Whether the Government's relaxation dispensing with postgraduate qualification for teachers completing 18 years of service was irrational.

Analysis: The relaxation was framed as a policy measure to extend the benefit of selection scale to teachers with long service and experience. Treating such experience as a sufficient basis for relaxation could not be characterised as unreasonable or irrational.

Conclusion: The relaxation was valid and could not be struck down as irrational.

Final Conclusion: The appeal succeeded, the High Court's order was set aside, and the administrative order rejecting the respondent's claim was restored, while the amounts already paid were protected from recovery.

Ratio Decidendi: A court cannot invalidate an unchallenged policy relaxation on grounds not pleaded, and a service-based relaxation of qualification conditions may stand where it rests on a rational policy basis such as long experience.

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