With one recruitment stuck for 5 years, Bihar govt moves to begin another drive to hire university teachers

A senior department official said that the Raj Bhawan had been approached by the commission for statute involving a fresh mechanism for appointments through a written test to ward off court cases, endless controversies and excruciating delays

While the Bihar State University Service Commission (BSUSC) is grappling with over 1,100 cases against the ongoing appointment process for assistant professors, which got underway over five years ago, the move is afoot to start fresh appointments in the understaffed state varsities, as retirement of teachers has virtually offset over 3,000 recruitment made so far in the last five years.

With one recruitment stuck for 5 years, Bihar govt moves to begin another drive to hire university teachers

A senior department official said that the Raj Bhawan had been approached by the commission for statute involving a fresh mechanism for appointments through a written test to ward off court cases, endless controversies and excruciating delays, as ultimately it was the government reputation that was at stake.

Last time, the appointment of assistant professors done through the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) also stretched for over five years, but it faced far less controversies and court litigations. This time the problem is that teachers are getting recommended and appointed in anticipation of verification of documents, which further complicates the matter, while the number of court cases has been on the rise.

Higher education director NK Agarwal said that UGC NET/CSIR qualified candidates joining as assistant professors would certainly reduce controversies and ensure quality intake. “The government wants that any type of appointment should be without controversy, maintain transparency and build trust about fairness, as ultimately the improvement is state universities will directly depend on passionate and qualified teachers. This is the precise reason why the government has set up separate higher education department,” he added.

Maintaining that he would also meet the governor, who is the chancellor of universities, to discuss reforms in the state universities to stay relevant in the rapidly changing landscape of higher education, he said appointment of CSIR-UGC NET qualified candidates from Bihar would certainly reduce controversies, improve quality of intake and make the process quicker and transparent, while test could be conducted later on after assessing remaining vacancies.

Former head of department of economics, Patna University, Prof NK Choudhary said that the controversies surrounding the appointment of assistant professors was really concerning and it would be wishful thinking to believe that a test would make it above board.

“When there are qualified candidates having cleared national level test available, they should get priority. Even if a test is to be conducted after assessing remaining vacancies, it should be for 50 marks with provision of carbon copy of answer sheet to candidates and answer key the very next day. The agency conducting the test should be made accountable for fairness. There should be 35 marks for academics and 15 for the interview,” he added.

He said that a government has a mandate for five years and any of its organs cannot and should not have unlimited mandate to endlessly stretch any exercise without accountability. “This time two major point of controversy erupted - lopsided 30 marks to PhD without verifying their credentials coupled with unrealistic clause of countersigning of experience certificate from Registrar and denial of marks to national and international level scopus / DOI indexed papers on petty pretext need corrections,” he addded

CPI-ML MLA Sandip Sapurav also wrote to the CM earlier this month over the delay in the joining of recommended candidates in Political Science subject despite publication of results in June 2024 and which created a lot of heat during election over the name of a minister.

There have been several cases in the court alleging use of fake experience certificates and research papers, while the commission has been passing the buck on the universities for the mess. In a judgment last week, the HC directed the BSUSC to consider the certificate of seven-year post doctoral experience at the IIT, Kanpur and award marks. The certificate had been rejected merely on the ground that it was not signed by the registrar, but by joint registrar, an authorised signatory.

Earlier this year, the court had sought affidavit from the Bihar State University Service Commission (BSUSC) without any delay on the “questionable legitimacy of the selection process”.

“The protracted delay in completion of the selection procedure, in the absence of the notified dates prescribed in the notification (by which date the selection procedure will end), can be said to have resulted into systematic fraud or irregularity and the entire selection process becomes illegitimate leading to cancellation of the process in entirety,” said the bench of Justice Purnendu Singh.

A couple of months ago, with the complaints reaching the Prime Minister Office, President’s office and the Chancellor’s secretariat also, Bihar’s Raj Bhawan had also intervened and wrote to the BSUSC secretary for required action in keeping with the rules and statutes and submit the action taken report. The Patna High Court had also stayed the appointment process in 2022 over quota ambiguity and it was lifted only last year.

Raj Bhawan submitted a list of 24 shortlisted complaints received at the Raj Bhawan with specific nature of objections by each complainant, though officials said that the actual number could be much higher. Some of the complaints also relate to principals’ appointments.

Some of the candidates also approached the court alleging that research papers with DOI number and publications in Scoupous Index high impact factor had not been awarded marks on the ground that only first page had been uploaded.

BSUSC chairman Girish Choudhary also confirmed “some forged experience certificates” getting detected, but blamed it on the issuing universities, saying “it is beyond the commission to verify if they have come under the seal and signature of the competent university authority (registrar of universities)”. He also said that for research papers marks could be awarded only after evaluation and that from next time, he would like appointments through test.

Agarwal also admitted that verification of documents at the university level after the recommendations are made was creating a big challenge even for the department, as more and more court cases were being filed in the court for one reason or the other.

Consistently embroiled in one controversy after another, the appointment process has lingered beyond five years and also evoked sharp criticism from the HC, while the appointments hardly made any significant change in the health of seriously understaffed universities due to regular retirements and none finding place in the NIRF ranking.

BSUSC had advertised 4,638 vacancies of assistant professors in 52 subjects on September 23, 2020, just ahead of the announcement of state assembly elections. The previous recruitment process through the BPSC had also lingered for around five years.