The Supreme Court on Tuesday said courts must be slow to interfere with the opinions of experts over academic standards and exercise powers of judicial review in cases where the prescribed qualification or condition was arbitrary.

A bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and K Vinod Chandran said normally, courts should not interfere with the decisions taken by expert statutory bodies regarding academic matter, be it qualifications for student admissions or those required by the teachers for appointment, salary, promotion, etc.

The apex court's verdict came on the appeals challenging the orders of the Bombay High Court which directed a society to extend the benefit of revised pay scales under the Sixth Central Pay Commission to some teachers.

They taught in the engineering and technical institutes run and managed by the society, the bench noted.

The top court referred to the prescribed qualification requirements of teachers in an engineering institute laid down by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).

"This court time and again has reiterated that the responsibility of fixing qualifications for the purposes of appointment, promotion, etc., of staff or qualifications for admissions, is that of expert bodies (in the present case, the AICTE), and so long as qualifications prescribed are not shown to be arbitrary or perverse, the courts will not interfere," it added.

The bench, however, noted it did not mean courts did not possess the power of judicial review.

"It only means that courts must be slow in interfering with the opinion of experts with regard to academic standards and powers of judicial review should only be exercised in cases where prescribed qualification or condition is against the law, arbitrary or involves interpretation of any principle of law," it said.

Dealing with the appeals, the bench said prior to March 15, 2000, PhD. was not an essential and mandatory qualification for lecturers or assistant professors.

There were, the court said, two different categories of teachers as respondents in the matter before it.

While one set of teachers were appointed prior to March 15, 2000 when PhD. was made a minimum qualification for the first time, the other set of teachers were appointed after March 15, 2000, when Ph.D. was an essential qualification.

The court opined when it came to teachers appointed before March 15, 2000, there was no reason to disturb the findings of the high court on their entitlements under the Sixth Central Pay Commission, etc.

Those teachers, on the other hand, appointed after March 15, 2000, and who were non-Ph.D. and had failed to acquire it within the required seven years of appointment, couldn't be given a higher pay scale or re-designated as an associate professor, it held.

"As and when, these teachers acquire a PhD. they would be at liberty to move an application before their respective institutions and AICTE for grant of higher pay scale and designation of associate professor, which shall be considered by them in accordance with law," it said.