KOCHI: The High Court on Tuesday set aside the appointment of 10 assistant professors in the Thunchath Ezhuthachan Malayalam University. Justice Shaji P Chaly issued the order on the petitions filed by Dr P Satheesh of Kasaragod and others. These appointments were made in 2016.
The court ruled that the entire process to select assistant professors in various departments was in violation of the Minimum Qualification Regulations, 2010 and the University Act, 2013. Terming them illegal, arbitrary and unsustainable under law, the court quashed the appointment of Jainy Varghese, V Sreeja, Manjusha Varma, K S Hakeem, R Danya, Sreeraj, N G Sreeja, S S Swapna Rani, R Vidhya and Sudheer Salam as assistant professors.
Though the petitioners sought to quash the entire selection based on the notification in question, the court was reluctant to do so since all the affected persons were not made parties in the writ petitions. The court made it clear that, to conduct the classes, the university can appoint teachers on contract. Former chief secretary K Jayakumar was the vice-chancellor of the university when the appointments were made.
M P Sreekrishnan and A Muhammed Musthafa, counsel for the petitioners, submitted that the university violated UGC norms in selecting assistant professors. They pointed out that for the post in Environmental Studies department, there were only two subject expert while the norms mandated three.
Similarly, they contended that M R Raghava Varier was the subject expert for selecting assistant professor for the history department even though he was a visiting faculty. Since a visiting faculty is not a permanent teacher, he is not entitled to act as head of the department and competent authority to conduct the interview for the post. Also the interview board consisted of only four members instead of the required six, they argued.
Petitioners submitted that Madhu Eravankara, one of the members of the selection panel in the Film Studies department, was a retired chemistry teacher. Some of the members in the selection committee had not sufficient qualifications, they argued.
However, the University argued that as per the UGC norms and the statute of the University, an outstanding professional with an established reputation in the relevant field, who has made significant contributions to the knowledge with the concerned discipline can be appointed as professor of any discipline.