In Brief
Ritu Bhatia, a management trainee who later became an Assistant Company Secretary, applied for a Company Secretary position requiring five years' post-qualification experience in that exact capacity. Though she claimed seven years' experience, most of it was not as an actual Company Secretary but in junior roles. Her employment was terminated for failing to meet the advertised eligibility criteria. The Supreme Court upheld the termination, holding that the word 'as' in the job requirement must be interpreted literally to mean the person must have actually held and functioned in the Company Secretary position, not merely performed similar duties under different titles."
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