The Delhi High Court has clipped the wings of a University Grants Commission rule that effectively allowed assistant professors to be hired on the strength of interviews alone, warning that such a system invites arbitrariness and falls foul of constitutional guarantees.
A Division Bench held that while the impugned UGC guideline need not be scrapped altogether, it cannot be interpreted to legitimise a recruitment process that is unstructured, unguided and driven exclusively by interviews. Read that way, the court said, the rule would collide with the equality principles enshrined in Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution. The provision, therefore, must be “read down” to ensure that interviews do not become the sole gatekeeper for entry-level academic appointments.
The ruling came in the context of a challenge to the recruitment process followed by the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA). The court found fault with the manner in which the institute handled a post reserved for Persons with Benchmark Disabilities (PwBD). It made clear that such a seat cannot be repurposed or re-labelled as one meant for PwBD candidates falling under the Economically Weaker Sections category.
The case was brought by Dr. Sachin Kumar, a candidate with a 75 per cent locomotor disability, who questioned NIEPA’s decision not to appoint any PwBD candidate despite the existence of a reserved vacancy. Agreeing with his grievance, the court set aside the recruitment exercise.
As a corrective step, NIEPA has been directed to issue a fresh advertisement within eight weeks for the PwBD-reserved assistant professor post, keeping the reservation intact and following a selection framework that meets constitutional standards.
In essence, the judgment sends a dual message: interviews may test a candidate’s presence and perspective, but they cannot be the only measure of merit; and reservation categories, once earmarked, cannot be casually reshuffled.
