Impossible To Impart Quality Education Without Filling Sanctioned Posts: Madras HC Forms Expert Committee To Monitor Recruitment In Govt Law Colleges

Justice Battu Devanand remarked that it was impossible to impart quality legal education without filling up the sanctioned posts of the professors. The court added that by not filling the vacancies in a time-bound manner, the ultimate sufferers were the law students who's potential was lost due to the low quality of education and lack of proper teaching faculity.

“This Court is of the considered opinion that it is impossible to impart qualitative legal education to the students without filling the sanctioned posts of teaching faculties, in the Government Law Colleges and if, the sanctioned teaching faculty posts are not filled, ultimate sufferers would be the students. It will destroy the future generation, who are interested to enter into the noble legal profession,” the court observed.

The court thus constituted the committee headed by Justice (Retd) V Bharathidasan and Senior Advocate P Wilson and IAS (Retd) Mythili K Rajendran as members. The committee was to monitor the entire selection process including implementation of reservation rules. The committee was also asked to issue necessary instructions and guidelines to the Teachers recruitment Board to finalise and issue notification for recruitment to ensure that the notification is free from litigation.

The committee was also asked to issue instructions to the Teachers Recruitment Board to finalise the question paper setters and examiners for valuation and decide the modalities of setting question papers, conducting written examination and interviews. The committee was also asked to constitute interview boards as per UGC norms for conducting interview.

The court was hearing a plea by Vasantha Kumar, an Assistant Professor in the Tamil Nadu Dr. Ambedkar Law University. Vasantha Kumar had challenged the letter of the State Government in which it was informed that 17 vacant seats of Associate Professors was to be filled by upgrading the Assistant Professors who were appointed in 2007. He contended that the vacancies were not being filled as per the norms and posts remained vacant still.

The State Government and the Director of Legal Studies informed the court that out of the 206 sanctioned posts of Assistant Professor in the Government Law Colleges, at present 136 Assistant Professors are working and 70 posts of Assistant Professor was vacant.

The court, after taking note of the factual submissions, was convinced that the state was not taking appropriate steps to fill up the vacancies on permanent basis with qualified candidates. The court also noted that post 2018, no notification had been issued to fill the vacant post of Assistant Professor and Associate Professor under direct recruitment. The Amicus Curia also endorsed this opinion and added that for the last 75 years, not a single Scheduled Tribe candidate had been appointed as teaching faculty in the Government Law Colleges.

The court noted that the decision of the Government to fill up the vacancies in the post of Associate Professors by upgrading the Assistant professor was contrary to Rule 2(b) of the Special Rules for the Tamil Nadu Legal educational Service which insisted that 60% of the vacancies was to be filled through promotion and 40% was to be through direct recruitment. The court thus deemed it fit to quash the proceedings.

Noting that a large number of vacancies were not being filled up by the State and the students were being taught by adhoc faculty, the court opined that the State was exploiting the educated qualified persons and depriving the students in getting quality education. The court added that low quality of education and lack of teaching staff in the colleges would ultimately hamper the students especially those belonging to the financially weaker sections of the society and those who hail from the SC, ST, OBC, EWS and minorities who could not afford to move to better institutions with good faculty.

Thus, in the interest of the students and to ensure that recruitment was conducted in a timely manner, the court thought it fit to constitute the committee and ordered accordingly.

Counsel for the Petitioner: Mr.M.Devaraj

Counsel for the Respondent: Mr.P.S.Raman, learned Advocate General assisted by Mr.D.Ravichander, SGP, Mr.K.Sathishkumar, Mr.N.S.Sivakumar

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Mad) 429

Case Title: P.Vasantha Kumar v Government of Tamil Nadu and Others

Case No: W.P.No.6856 of 2018