GUWAHATI: The Gauhati High Court has set aside the order of appointment of Prof. P. K. Iyer as Director In-Charge of the IIT Guwahati and directed the authorities to make such an appointment strictly in accordance with the guidelines laid down in the First Meeting of the Council of the IITs on May 25, 1962.
The HC order was passed in connection with Case Number: WP(C)/1955/2023, filed by Prof. Sashindra Kumar Kakoty, Deputy Director, IIT Guwahati. The principal issue involved in this writ petition is the appointment of the director-in-charge of the IIT Guwahati. The consequential issue is also with regard to the process of regular appointment to the said post of director. The process adopted in the aforesaid recruitment has been assailed both on the ground of violation of the established norms as well as on the element of bias and favouritism.
The facts projected in the petition are that the petitioner is a professor at IIT-Guwahati and, at the relevant time, was serving as its Deputy Director. The post of director fell vacant as the earlier director had been appointed elsewhere, and there was a requirement to fill up the said post of director on an in-charge basis.
The HC found that the statutory rules holding the field do not contain any provision for the appointment of an in-charge director. However, it said, such procedures can be traced back to the First Meeting of the Council of the four numbers of IITs (as it was then) held on May 25, 1962. As per Item No. 7, the Chairman of the Council, which is the parent body, in consultation with the Chairman of the concerned Board of Governors, was to make such appointments. It may be mentioned that each of the IITs has got a Board of Governors. The petition prayed for twofold relief. Firstly, it challenged the appointment of respondent Prof. P. K. Iyer as Director In-Charge of the IIT Guwahati, and secondly, it prayed for a direction that in the selection process for filling up the post of Director on a regular basis, the respondent Dr. Rajiv I. Modi should not be allowed to participate as a member of the Selection Committee.
It was clear to the court that such appointments are to be made from three options: i) from the Deputy Director; ii) from the senior most professor; and iii) by giving the responsibility to the Director of another IIT.
In the instant case, while the petitioner, Prof. Sashindra Kumar Kakoty, was the Deputy Director at the relevant point in time and was among the incumbents who could be considered for such an appointment on an in-charge basis, the respondent, Prof. P. K. Iyer, was not even among the eligible candidates.
Dr. Rajiv I. Modi, who is the Chairman of the Board of Governors, announced in his email dated November 20, 2022, that he had appointed Prof. P. K. Iyer as the Director in Charge and had also entrusted him with the responsibility from December 2022. With such powers of appointment only given to the Chairman of the Council, the course of action adopted by Dr. Rajiv I. Modi is wholly without jurisdiction, the court found. The court also concluded that Prof. P. K. Iyer did not meet the eligibility criteria, as only candidates having a Ph.D. or equivalent degree, preferably in the branch of engineering, are to be considered, and only in an exceptional case would other candidates come into the picture.
Therefore, the court has held the appointment of Prof. P. K. Iyer as Officiating Director of IIT Guwahati to be vitiated by bias and favouritism by the actions of Dr. Rajiv I. Modi, the Chairperson of the Board of Governors of IIT Guwahati.
As such, the HC set aside the impugned order of appointment and directed that the appointment of the in-charge director of IIT Guwahati should be made strictly in accordance with the norms by taking into consideration the guidelines laid down in the First Meeting of the Council of the IITs and from the three options available to make such an appointment, namely, from the Deputy Director, from the senior most professor, or by entrusting the responsibility to the director of another IIT.
The HC is also of the opinion that since the decision-making process in the shortlisting of candidates and further selection process is vitiated by bias and favouritism, the entire process of selection was held to be bad in law and accordingly interfered with.
The authorities were directed to re-do the entire exercise of shortlisting candidates for the post of director from amongst only the eligible candidates strictly in terms of the advertisement published earlier and the laws governing such an appointment.
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