The Punjab and Haryana High Court has set aside both the recruitment advertisement for Assistant Professor (English) and the underlying selection process. Allowing a bunch of 10 petitions, Justice Tribhuvan Dahiya directed the State of Haryana, Haryana Public Service Commission (HPSC) and other respondents to undertake the selection process afresh strictly in accordance with the UGC regulations.
The petitioners had challenged advertisement “48 of 2024” through which posts of Assistant Professor (English) in Higher Education Department were notified. Among other things, the petitioners sought the quashing of the advertisement on the ground that the recruitment framework stemmed from a state memorandum that allegedly diluted mandatory UGC regulations.
The petitioner contended that the memorandum dated November 11, 2022, issued by the state government was violative of UGC (Minimum Qualifications for Appointment of Teachers and other Academic Staff in Universities and Colleges and Measures for the Maintenance of Standards in Higher Education) Regulations 2018.
Elaborating, the petitioners contended that the criteria for shortlisting and selection was framed by the commission on the basis of the government memorandum, but it was not as per 2018 Regulations notified by UGC.
Senior Advocate DS Patwalia, along with advocates Gaurav Rana, Sarthak Gupta, Ashish Verma, Bhupinder Malik, Anjali Sheoran, Pardeep Kumar Sharma, Munish Soni, Rajender, Ashish Kaushik, Ritish Jindal, Dalbir Singh, Sandeep Bansal, Ravinder Singh Dhull and Navnit Sharma, appeared on behalf of the petitioners.
Taking up the matter, the bench observed: “The process adopted by the Commission, as set out in the advertisement, is that the candidates are to be selected based upon a scheme/pattern of examination after a screening test for shortlisting, followed by subject knowledge test and interview. The final merit list is to be drawn based upon the marks obtained by the candidates in the test as well as interview. This process is not in line with 2018 Regulations, which require the candidates to be shortlisted as per the academic score (based upon performance in graduation, post-graduation, MPhil, PhD, NET, research publications, teaching experience, and academic awards).”
Justice Dahiya asserted the issue arising for consideration was whether the 2018 Regulations were binding in nature “requiring their adoption in toto — without any change, addition or deletion — so far as laying down the qualifications and the selection procedure, including that of shortlisting, is concerned”.
The bench observed it was not the respondents’ case that the modifications carried out by them in the regulations vide the impugned memorandum prescribed higher norms for maintenance of higher education standards than the ones fixed by 2018 Regulations.
“Accordingly, the memorandum and the consequent selection process are not in consonance with law. The issue framed regarding binding nature of the 2018 Regulations is answered in the affirmative,” the bench held.
Allowing the petitions, Justice Dahiya ruled the impugned memorandum was declared unlawful and set aside to the extent it violated 2018 Regulations notified by UGC.
