High court division bench stays single-bench order of July 12

CHANDIGARH: A Punjab and Haryana high court division bench on Monday stayed a single-judge order in which a petition against the appointment of 1,646 assistant professors in Haryana colleges was dismissed.

The high court bench of chief justice Krishna Murari and justice Arun Palli acted on the appeal of Anil Kumar, one of the candidates, and others, in which they had challenged the July 12 order of a single-judge bench. The matter had reached court in 2017.

The recruitment was being conducted by the Haryana Public Service Commission (HPSC). The selection process was initiated in February 2016 for computer science, Geology, Geography, Hindi, English and other subjects. After the matter reached court, the HPSC was restrained from making the appointments.

The single-judge bench had held that the HPSC was competent to lay down its own selection criteria and the same cannot be faulted unless it is shown to be arbitrary or unreasonable. The UGC Regulations, 2010, are partly mandatory in institutes funded by the central government but in these colleges, where appointments are to be made, are run by state government, the court had opined.

The single judge bench was also of the view that petitioners, before they participated in the selection process, were aware of the selection criteria adopted, but decided to the challenge the same after they remained unsuccessful.

In the appeal before the division bench now, it has been argued that the selection criterion was contrary to the criteria recommended by the Ministry of Human Resource Development.

The advertisement did not mention the criteria to be adopted for selection of candidates, in some cases reservation was given beyond the limit of 50% and vertical reservation of 10% was given to economically-backward persons in general category, which is illegal, the court has been told.