BANDANA BOSE Vs. BANARAS HINDU UNIVERSITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The dispute in the present writ petition relates to Headship of the Department of Plant Physiology, Institute of Agricultural Science, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi.

(2.) The facts, largely undisputed, are that in the Department of Plant Physiology of the Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, at the relevant time, there were three Professors. The petitioner was the senior-most, followed by Professor J.P. Srivastava and Professor A. Hemanta Ranjan, who was appointed as Professor w.e.f 27.06.2006. The Headship of a Department of Banaras Hindu University is governed by Statute 25 of the First Statutes of the Banaras Hindu University, which is being reproduced below:-

(3.) Clause (4) of the Statute 25 provides that each department shall have a Head whose duties, functions and conditions of appointments shall be laid down by the Ordinances. Sub-Clause (2) of Clause (4) of Statute 25 provides that in the case of Department having a sanctioned strength of more than one Professor, the Vice-Chancellor shall appoint one of the Professors by rotation according to seniority as the Head of the Department for a specified period as laid down in the Ordinances. Proviso (2) to Sub-clause (2) of Clause (4) of Statute 25 provides that a Professor/Reader who has been the Head of the Department earlier or who declined the option under Clause (5) shall not be reappointed until all the Professor/Reader as the case may be in the Department have been duly considered. The Proviso (3) to Sub-clause (2) of Clause (4) of Statute 25 provides that in the event of Professor/Reader not being available at the time of commencement of his tenure, the Professor/Reader, as the case may be, next in order of seniority shall be appointed as Head of the Department and the tenure of such as were not available shall commence after the expiry of the term of the Professor/Reader appointed in his absence.