HYDERABAD: A division bench of the Hyderabad High Court has directed the Andhra Pradesh government to spell out its stand on filling up vacancies of lecturers in the government degree and junior colleges by end of this month.
The bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Dilip B Bhosale and Justice S V Bhatt was dealing with a PIL case filed by P Jayabharath Reddy, resident of Kadapa district, seeking to declare the action of the government in appointing and continuing the lecturers in government degree colleges on ad hoc basis which was contrary to GO Ms No.47 dated May 14, 2007, as illegal.
Senior counsel G Vidyasagar, appearing for the petitioner, brought to the notice of the court that more than 750 lecturers are working in the government degree colleges in the state as contract lecturers and many of them have neither Ph.D nor qualified either the State Level Entrance Test (SLET) or the National Eligibility Test (NET). As per the Regulations of the University Grants Commission, the persons having Ph D and are qualifying either in SLET or NET only are eligible to hold the post of lecturer in a degree college, he argued.
The senior counsel urged the court to declare their appointments as illegal and to direct the state government to fill up the posts with the eligible candidates.
Reacting to the submissions, Justice Bhosale said that the removal of 750 lecturers at a time will have adverse effect on the students of the colleges.
When the bench enquired with AP government counsel B Devanand about the facts in continuing the contract lecturers, the latter replied that the lecturers have been working for the past 10 to 12 years and they are in the posts based on the orders of the Administrative Tribunal which were passed from time to time. Besides, the government has taken steps to have regular recruitment with regard to 286 vacancies existing in degree colleges, he explained.
The bench told him to get instructions from the government whether it was possible to conduct SLET for every six months to facilitate the contract lecturers to appear for the exam and qualify. While posting the matter to Oct 30 for further hearing, the bench directed the government to place a report before the court informing about the steps being taken towards filling up the vacancies.