HC upholds validity of Murthal varsity's part-time B Tech degrees for promotions
In a landmark judgment benefiting in-service engineers, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has ruled that part-time B Tech (Civil Engineering) degrees awarded by Deen Bandhu Chhotu Ram University of Science and Technology (DCRUST), Murthal, are valid and equivalent to regular degrees for the purpose of career promotions.
Relief for in-service engineers
Blurb: In a relief for in-service engineers, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has ruled that part-time B.Tech degrees from Murthal’s DCRUST are valid and equivalent to regular courses, making degree-holders eligible for promotions.
The Division Bench comprising Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma and Justice HS Grewal overturned a 2022 single-judge ruling that had declared these degrees invalid, restoring the promotional prospects of hundreds of engineers.
The Bench clarified that the courses, initially launched in 2011 as week-end programmes and later renamed as part-time evening courses, were not distance education programmes and involved mandatory on-campus attendance.
“We find the documents which are on record only lead us to one single conclusion that all the courses being run by the university have to be treated as regular courses,” the Bench asserted.
“The three-year course and the four-year part-time evening course have to be treated as equivalent for all purposes as understood by the university itself.”
The appeals were filed by DCRUST and several Junior Engineers (JEs), who had enrolled in the part-time programme while in service and with departmental permission. The course involved entrance tests, physical classes two days a week, and was approved by the university’s academic and executive councils. The state government had allowed its employees to pursue the course after duty hours, and the degrees were officially recorded in the service books.
The court noted an AICTE notification dated August 13, 2020, which recognised part-time or evening shift technical programmes — with physical attendance — as equivalent to regular ones.
“Those who have already passed such type of course would have become to have done a regular course,” the Bench held.
Commending the state’s support for technical upskilling, the judges called it a “step in the right direction for capacity building.”
The court directed that the engineers be considered for promotion from the date their juniors were promoted, with full consequential benefits, and ordered compliance within two months.
