Gaya: As many as 20 assistant professors of Mirza Ghalib College, Gaya, a gov-funded minority college, have lost their jobs after a division bench of the Patna high court dismissed their petition on Feb 16.The division bench, comprising Chief Justice Sangam Kumar Sahoo and Justice Harish Kumar, upheld the earlier judgment of a single judge bench that had quashed their appointments on the grounds of gross anomalies in the appointment process and a flawed constitution of the selection committee.These appointments were made in Feb 2021.The subjects in which appointments were made include physics, chemistry, mathematics, political science, economics and psychology.These appointments were earlier quashed by Justice Anjani Kumar Sharan in 2024 on grounds of serious anomalies and malpractices in the appointment process. The affected teachers challenged the order of the single judge bench but the division bench provided no relief.As per the details of the case, the posts of assistant professors were first advertised in March 2018 and interview was conducted in Feb 2019. Subsequently the governing body (GB) cancelled the advertisement in Oct 2019 without assigning any reason and advertised the posts afresh and made these controversial appointments. The appointments were subsequently challenged in the high court by some of the applicants.The appointments were quashed for blatant violation of Section 57 of the Bihar State Universities Act that deals with the procedure of appointment of teachers in the minority colleges. The Act mandates the constitution of a selection committee, comprising one nominee of the GB as its chairman.Besides the chairman nominated by the GB from among its members, the selection committee must comprise the principal of the college, head of the concerned department of the college and three domain experts. The three domain experts have to be selected from a panel of five names recommended by the academic council of the affiliating university.According to the HC, the selection committee itself was deeply flawed as neither the principal of the college nor head of the concerned departments were included in the wrongly constituted selection committee that also completely by-passed the university’s academic council.Not only that, the college management claimed that the entire interview process has been videographed. But when the inquiry committee constituted by the university sought raw/unedited footage of the claimed video, the college management came with the alibi that the video records have gone missing.The non compilation of comparative chart of the applicants, academic score card, marks granted in the interview, non transparent selection of experts, cancellation of interview for the post of assistant professor of Urdu and lack of clarity about the mode of communication with the applicants in respect of interview and appointment are some of the more glaring shortcomings of the quashed appointment process.While quashing the appointments, the court in the judgment made it clear that the right of the minorities “to establish and administer educational institutions is not absolute. Nor does it include the right to maladminister”.
