CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has held that the wisdom of the selection committee of Teachers Recruitment Board (TRB), in selecting candidates for appointment to the post of assistant professors to arts and science colleges, cannot be subjected to judicial review without any incriminating evidence to prove malpractice.
A division bench of justices S M Subramaniam and C Kumarappan gave the ruling recently while setting aside a 2020 order of a single judge directing to redo the selection process for appointment.
The matter pertains to the recruitment of assistant professors to the government arts and science colleges in 2015 based on the May 28, 2013, recruitment notification. The general merit list was published on March 31, 2015, and the final selection list was released on April 8, 2015.
One of the candidates, M Shibikumaran, under the physically challenged category belonging to BC could not be selected as he scored 11 marks. So, he moved the court with a writ petition for including his name in the final selection list and raised certain allegations in the selection of A Alexander under backward class PSTM (persons studied in Tamil medium) category with 29 marks.
The single judge, on October 29, 2020, passed orders including the direction to redo the selection process.
“This court is of the view that the wisdom of the selection committee cannot be gone into by the high court in exercise of powers of judicial review in the absence of any incriminating evidence to establish any malpractice, extraneous consideration or otherwise,” the bench said in the order.
It added that the assessment of the expert selection committee is final and cannot be substituted by the courts in the absence of any materials to establish the extraneous consideration.