Politics News

'Gross Illegality Can't Be Ignored', Says SC Quashing Appointment Of 1,158 Assistant Professors, Librarians In Punjab

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday quashed the appointment of 1,091 assistant professors and 67 librarians in Punjab, observing "total arbitrariness" in the selection process, and emphasised, "a gross illegality like the present recruitment cannot be ignored". A bench comprising justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and K Vinod Chandran said: "We would like to observe that we are aware of the fact that quashing of the entire recruitment process may cause hardships for the selected candidates, but at the same time, there is no equity in the favour of selected candidates as challenge to the recruitment was made during the pendency of the process and appointments were subject to the court orders. A gross illegality like the present recruitment cannot be ignored". The bench said the state has miserably failed to justify the departure from the standard norms of the recruitment process. "It has failed to give any valid reason for not adopting the UGC Regulations and avoiding the Public Service Commission in the recruitment in question. Moreover, as discussed earlier, the reasons for this departure were narrow political and arbitrary", said the bench, in its 56-page judgment. The bench said in the case at hand, the state did not adhere to UGC Regulations and took the posts out of the purview of the commission without following the procedure prescribed under the law. "And this was done suddenly without any valid reason, and thus, it would amount to arbitrariness and cannot be sustained in the eyes of the law", said the bench. The apex court set aside the September 2024 decision of the division bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which upheld the appointments. The process began in October 2021, when the Punjab Director of Higher Education issued a public notice inviting online applications for assistant professor posts for various subjects and for librarians ahead of the state assembly elections. The bench said it is a settled principle that when the law prescribes a thing to be done in a particular manner, then it should be done in that manner alone. The bench said the state is entitled to change its policy, yet a sudden change without valid reasons will always be seen with suspicion. "Even in cases where there is no statutory prescription of any particular way of doing a thing, the executive must observe the long-standing practice, and a deviation from such a practice would require passing the muster of reasonableness, which is a facet of Article 14 of the Constitution", said the bench. The bench said in the present case there are multiple deficiencies, and added that the giving away of a rigorous criteria laid down in the UGC regulations with a single, multiple-choice question based written test, and the complete elimination of the vivavoce, all establish the arbitrary nature of the exercise which cannot pass the test of reasonableness laid down under Article 14 of the Constitution. "Hence, the learned single judge had rightly struck down the entire selection process, and the division bench of the high court erred in interfering with that conclusion", said the bench. The bench said the state and its instrumentalities have a duty and responsibility to act fairly and reasonably in terms of the mandate of Article 14 of the Constitution. "Any decision taken by the State must be reasoned, and not arbitrary. This court has consistently held that when a thing is done in a posthaste manner, mala fides would be presumed, and further that anything done in undue haste can also be termed as arbitrary and cannot be condoned in law. We may refer here to a few judgments of this court, which lay down this proposition", said the bench.

Latest Stories

Read Full Story