Tripura HC cancels appointment of 113 assistant professors

A CORRESPONDENT

AGARTALA, Feb 27: Tripura government suffered a serious setback when the Tripura High Court cancelled the list of 113 candidates prepared by the Tripura Public Service Commission for appointment as assistant professor in different general colleges in the State.

The division bench comprising the Chief Justice Deepak Gupta and justice S C Das instructed the TPSC to start the recruitment process afresh and to complete it by next three months. It further said that no fresh application should be invited for the purpose and only the applicants applied earlier will be allowed.

The bench asked the TPSC not to file any misleading affidavit if future and cautioned of strong action in case of any recurrence of such event. A group of disgruntled aspirants had filed the case alleging that the TPSC did not follow the guide lines issued by the University Grants Commission. The UGC guide lines clearly said that the reservation policy should be applied on subject basis but in the instant case the reservation policy was followed over number of total vacancies. It also did not follow the guide line for scoring of the interviewee.

The bench issued 14 guide lines for recruitment and said reservation will not be applicable in cases where the minimum quota has already fulfilled. It also rejected a notification earlier issued by the TPSC saying that ST candidates should be given preference in the de-reserved posts. The guide line said list of candidates for interview should be prepared as per Academic Performance Index and it also clarified how many candidates should be called for interview against how many vacancies.

The case was filed immediately after the lists of selected candidates were released by the TPSC in May 19 last. The complaints said they were deprived despite having better merit due to the faulty procedure followed by the TPSC violating the UGC guide line.

Earlier the court had stayed the operation of the list and during the fil hearing it was revealed that the TPSC did not followed the standard procedures for such recruitment.

The state government also suffered a major setback last year when the high court rejected the appointment of over ten thousand school teachers for following discrimitory procedure and violating the guide lines of the New Education Policy. However, the state government had challenged the order in the apex court and the matter is still pending.