S P AHUJA Vs. PUNJAB AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioner has challenged the selection and appointment of respondent No. 4 as Head of Department, Bio-Chemistry and has prayed that while quashing the selection of respondent No. 4 the respondent-University be directed to consider the petitioner for appointment as Head of Department, Bio-Chemistry.

(2.) The case set up by the petitioner is that he joined Punjab Agricultural University (for short, 'the University') as Assistant Professor in 1970. He was appointed as Associate Professor in the year 1981. He was conferred the award of National Fellow by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (for short, 'the ICAR'). He continued as National Fellow upto January, 1988. Thereafter, he joined as Professor of Bio-Chemistry in February, 1988. The petitioner as well as respondent No. 4 were candidates before the selection committee for appointment on the post of Head of Department, Bio-Chemistry, which recommended the name of respondent No. 4 for appointment as Head of Department, Bio-Chemistry. The Board of Management of the respondent- University approved the appointment of respondent No. 4 as Head of the Department of Bio-Chemistry, in its 146th meeting held on 18.3.1993.

(3.) In challenging the selection of respondent No. 4 as Head of the Department of Bio-Chemistry, the petitioner has pleaded that he was holding a Professorial Chair as a National Fellow and that in that capacity he was holding an office equivalent to that of Professor. He was paid salary in the scale of Professor and was given the benefit of revision of the University Grants Commission pay scale w.e.f. 1.1.1986. According to the petitioner, he was senior to respondent No. 4 in the cadre of Professor but ignoring his better seniority and merit, the selection committee made recommendation in favour of respondent No. 4. The petitioner has also questioned the eligibility of respondent No. 4 to be considered for the post of Head of the Department of Bio-Chemistry by asserting that respondent No. 4 belongs to the Department of Vegetable Crops, Land-Scaping and Floriculture, and was working as Senior Bio-Chemistry at the time of consideration of his case for appointment as Head of Department under Statute 4(2) of Chapter IV of the Punjab Agricultural University Act and Statutes, 1982. Another plea raised by the petitioner is that the very composition of the selection committee was contrary to Statute 4(2)(iv), inasmuch as no representative of the ICAR was invited to participate in the proceedings of the selection committee. The petitioner has stated that one Dr. N. C. Ganguli, who was merely an Officer on Special Duty in the ICAR and who had even retired from service, was treated as an expert representing the ICAR without his nomination by the Council.