Plea on recruitment of assistant profs: HC asks Bihar govt to file affidavit

The court observation came a day before the interview process is set to begin with the interview for Angika subject starting Thursday

The Patna high court has asked the Bihar government to file an affidavit within a week on how the reservation provided for assistant professors reflects in the advertisement put out for the vacancies for the same.

The Patna high court. (File photo)

While hearing a plea challenging the recruitment process on the ground that the reservation formula has not been properly adopted,the bench of Justice Vikas Jain on Wednesday asked the state to file the affidavit within a week as to how reservation has been provided in the advertisement. “With regard to recruitment, any decision will be affected by the final outcome of the case ,” the court said. The next hearing will take place after a week.

The court observation came a day before the interview process is set to begin with the interview for Angika subject starting Thursday.

The petitioners, Amod Prabodhi and others, who are guest lecturers, have sought that the advertisement of the Bihar state university service commission, dated September 21, 2020, be quashed and direction given to the concerned authorities to work out the vacancies in accordance with the law.

They have asked that the authorities be restrained from making appointments against the notified vacancies of reserved category beyond the permissible limit of 50%. The Bihar state university service commission had, at the time of issuing the advertisement for appointment, said it had followed the calculation of vacancies adopted by the universities.

Former advocate general and senior counsel, PK Shahi, who appeared for the petitioners, said that out of 4,683 vacancies, 1,223 only had been marked for general category. “This is much lower, as there should be 2,319 vacancies for general category. Besides, the number of vacancies notified by the commission is much lower than the actual number. In some universities, zero vacancy has been shown in some subjects while the ground situation is different,” he added.

The petition, which has made the department of education, the commission as well as all the vice-chancellors of the state universities parties in the case, also questioned why the clubbing together of previous vacancies with fresh vacancies, if done, had not been mentioned in the advertisement along with backlog vacancies. “The backlog vacancies have been allocated in contravention of norms,” said the petition.