High Court stays regular selection of medical faculty

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 30

The Punjab and Haryana High Court today directed that further process for regular selection of medical faculty in Mohali’s Dr BR Ambedkar State Institute of Medical Sciences would be kept in abeyance.

The direction by the Bench of Justice Jaswant Singh and Justice Sant Parkash came on a petition filed and argued against the State of Punjab and other respondents by Sukhminderjit Singh Bajwa and other petitioners through senior advocate Rajesh Garg and Rakesh Dhiman.

They were seeking directions for staying the process for regular selection of medical faculty. Appearing before the Bench through video-conferencing, Garg contended the petitioners had not been permitted to join the selection process, despite specific order dated May 31 passed in the petition.

“After examining the contentions of the counsel for the petitioner, we find that if it is true what is contended, then the act of completing the recruitment process without provisionally interviewing the petitioners would amount to contempt of the interim order dated May 31, 2019,” the Bench observed. It also impleaded the institute, through its director, on Garg’s request. The Bench, during the course of hearing, was told that interviews were held on October 9 and 10. The posts in various disciplines, for which an advertisement was issued on October 7, were those of professors, assistant professors and associate professors.

The petitioner through Garg claimed she had already challenged the constitutional validity of a particular provision in the 2016 rules, by virtue of which she, amongst other candidates, had been made ineligible to participate in the selection.

Garg added the Division Bench headed by the Chief Justice on May 30, 2019, had directed as an interim measure that the petitioner would be provisionally interviewed in case the respondents decided to proceed with the interviews.

But the respondent state filed an affidavit before the High Court stating that final selections, if any, would only be made after the writ petition’s decision and that the state, at the moment, was only proceeding to recruit faculty on an ad hoc basis. But the institute advertised various faculty posts without making the petitioner participate in the selection process.

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