RASHMY NAIR Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) SINCE the issue involved in the present bunch of petitions is common, are decided by the present order. Facts have been noticed from D.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 20344/2013.

(2.) IN order to appreciate the grievance of the petitioners, it will be necessary to glance through the relevant background facts. An advertisement No. 03/2012/T dt. 01.11.2012 was issued by the respondent -University inviting applications for appointment to the post of Professor/Associate Professor/Assistant Professor. It may be noted that the post of Teachers of 42 various departments are notified by a common advertisement dt. 01.11.2012 and it has been informed to this court that apart from six departments in which there is a litigation regarding the procedure adopted by the respondent -University for short -listing the eligible candidates to be called for interview, the self same procedure was followed by the respondent -University in all the departments and selections of the post of Assistant Professor have been finalized and in all the other departments, candidates who were finally selected, have joined as Assistant Professor in their respective departments and the six departments in which the dispute arose and came up for consideration before this court are basically departments of Hindi, Economics, Sociology, SASC, Botany and Chemistry. It may be further noticed that as per the terms & conditions of advertisement, qualification and eligibility shall be as per the UGC Norms and Regulations and at the same time, it was further notified that the University reserves its right to short -list the number of candidates to be called for interview, as per Rules. It is not in dispute that a large number of candidates submitted their application to participate in the selection process, claiming themselves to be eligible, in terms of qualification and eligibility, prescribed under the relevant Ordinance/UGC Regulations and some procedure was to be adopted by the respondent -University for short -listing the number of candidates who were to be ultimately called for interview and it is brought to our notice that after adopting the procedure of short -listing, number of candidates, were called for interview in the ratio of 1:10.

(3.) THE present petitioners, as alleged & claimed by them, being eligible, submitted their application for the post of Assistant Professor in the six departments, reference of which has been indicated above, and the applicants being large in number than the number of vacancies, some procedure was to be adopted by the respondent -University for short -listing the number of candidates to be called for interview and the only issue raised for our consideration is that whether the criteria, which the respondent -University has adopted in short -listing the number of candidates, under its Ord. 141 -B(4) in calling the candidates for interview, was rationale and in conformity with the mandate of law and is in conformity with the Cl.(a) of Stage -I of Table -II (c) of Appendix -III of the UGC Regulations, 2010.