The protective qualification ceiling for jobs like those of an office attendant was written for a world where a degree still lifted people up. That world has gone. Photo: Representative image, iStock
Last month, the Supreme Court ruled that K. Poovarasan was not fit to hold the post because he was ‘overqualified’ for it and let his dismissal stand. But The State of Working India 2026 report shows that nearly two in five graduates under twenty-five are out of work, graduate joblessness has hovered between a third and two-fifths for decades.
Somewhere in Tamil Nadu, a man with a B.Com degree spent years as an office attendant. He carried files. He ran errands. He fetched the tea. And to hold that job, he hid the fact that he had a graduation degree.
Last month, the Supreme Court ruled that K. Poovarasan was not fit to hold the post because he was ‘overqualified’ for it and let his dismissal stand. The order, General Manager (HR) v. K. Poovarasan, reads like a quarrel over recruitment rules. It is, however, also a window into a crisis which is more serious and sombre than an individual case.
India now turns out far more educated young people than it has work for. So the educated chase jobs built for the unschooled, and sometimes, as in the case of Poovarasan, lie to keep them.
Begin with the numbers behind his choice. The State of Working India 2026 report finds that the swelling number of graduates has far outstripped the jobs available for them. Nearly two in five graduates under twenty-five are out of work. More than a crore of graduates in their twenties had no job in 2023. Even among young men who do find work, only about seven in a hundred land a permanent salaried post within a year. The report notes that graduate joblessness has hovered between a third and two-fifths for decades. The degree, sold as a ladder, often leads nowhere.
“Graduation is a basic qualification. It’s like bread; you need some topping to make it work. In the case of a job, it has to be some skill set, based on interest. It could be sales or support related, or designing, video editing, graphics…most successful candidates [those who find jobs] do these short three to six months of short training courses to qualify for specific jobs,” agrees Sunil Goel, managing director of the executive search, recruitment and placement consultancy firm, GlobalHunt. “Just a bachelor's in history or commerce won’t fetch a job,” he adds.
This is why a B.Com holder will sit for a peon’s test. A secure government job at the bottom beats an insecure life in the middle. The pay is modest, but it is certain. The pension is real. For a young man from a poor home, that certainty can matter more than the title on his certificate.
As Goyal points out, cases such as Poovarasan’s are more common in the public sector. “Among people in our country, there is a fascination with a government job. It is perceived to be more stable, with no lay-offs. So people are even willing to do a job for which they are overqualified,” he says.
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In the government sector, there is a reason posts like Poovarasan’s are kept for the barely schooled. The state calls itself a model employer. It sets aside such jobs which do not require a higher qualification or specific skillsets for those whom life pushed out of school early. The logic is humane. Throw a peon’s post open to all and graduates will crowd out the eighth-pass candidate, sweeping every written test and interview. The post exists to shelter the weak from that contest.
C. Malolan, former general manager (human resources) of a public-sector bank, sees no injustice in the result. “The post is ‘attender’, mainly to cater to those who couldn’t study in regular schooling,” he says. “Snatching it away by a more ‘intelligent’ guy is depriving a deserving candidate. Cheaters shouldn’t be protected.”
Like Gupta, he, too, is candid about why the educated keep applying. “Overqualified persons apply for jobs requiring lesser qualifications because they are attracted by the job security which the latter offer,” he says, “and also because they can easily pass any recruitment test, if held”.
But he names a discomfort that follows them into the office. “When you find overqualified persons in unskilled jobs, they cause surprise,” he says. “But it can also result in acute embarrassment when those less qualified than them already occupy positions of importance in the office hierarchy, and are expected to give the former oral directions to get mundane things done.”
More than a crore of graduates in their twenties had no job in 2023, according to The State of Working India 2026 report. Photo: iStock
And so, the shelter built to protect the unschooled traps the educated. The protective qualification ceiling for jobs like those of an office attendant was written for a world where a degree still lifted people up. That world has gone. If Poovarasan hid his graduation degree to avail of an attendant's job, news of graduates working in the gig economy, as food delivery partners or drivers for app-based services too make it to the news periodically.
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According to court documents, Poovarasan registered at the employment exchange back in 1998, when he had passed only the eighth standard and was eligible for sub-staff work. The call did not come for years. While he waited, he kept studying. Over fourteen years, he passed his school exams and earned a B.Com. By the time the bank called him for the attender’s post, around 2012, the boy who had qualified as unschooled had become a graduate. He took the job and named only his Class 10 pass.
What’s ironic is that Poovarasan is being held accountable for being ‘overqualified’ at a time when across industries the workforce is struggling to upskill and upgrade to ensure that they are not made redundant by technology.
Shweta Velayudhan, a labour and employment lawyer in Delhi, says that Indian courts “have held, across a consistent line of cases, that hiding material facts during a hiring process, whether a criminal case or an educational qualification, goes to the very honesty of the appointment, and gives the employer a sound basis to let the person go”.
She adds: “In the private sector, I’ve come across situations where employees have misrepresented facts material to their employment,” she says. “These have later been uncovered in background verification, or investigated by the employer, and employment has been terminated, as per due process.”
Velayudhan agrees, however, that if an employee joins with the correct qualifications, discloses everything honestly, and then upgrades their qualification during service, “dismissal would have no leg to stand on. In fact, such conduct often becomes the qualifying basis for further promotions/ eligibility for qualifying exams”.
She also talks of the judgment missing the world that produced the lie. “What the Supreme Court doesn’t reckon with is the grim reality driving this behaviour,” she says. “With graduate unemployment at record levels, concealing a degree to land a peon’s job is often less about deception and more about survival. And the judgment offers no vocabulary for that desperation.”
India now turns out far more educated young people than it has work for. Photo: iStock
Before the Supreme Court order upholding his dismissal, two judges of the Madras High Court, on two separate occasions, had sided with Poovarasan. A single judge bench in April last year held that the bank had never shown that a degree barred anyone from the post. The high court drew a careful line between a false statement and an incomplete one. His claim to have passed Class 10 was true. Staying silent about the rest, with no proof of motive, was not a lie. A two-judge bench agreed in September the same year, finding that the bank had produced nothing to prove that graduates were shut out. By its reading of the file, he had, in any case, disclosed the degree himself, later, when his job was made permanent.
The Supreme Court read the papers differently. It found a 2009 letter from the bank to the employment exchange that set the rules. Candidates had to have passed Class 8, but must not have crossed Class 12. On that document, Poovarasan was over the line the day his name went forward around 2012.
It is tempting to read Poovarasan’s case as one man’s dishonesty. But behind him stands a long queue of degree-holders, probably willing to do the same, for the same reason; educated young people in an economy that asked them to study, then built little for them to do.
The waste is not only personal. India is near the peak of its demographic dividend. After 2030, the share of working-age people will begin to shrink. These are the very years in which a young, educated workforce was meant to power the economy. Instead, a graduate spends them carrying tea trays, and lying to keep the tray.
