HC constitutes expert committee to monitor filling of 144 teaching vacancies in govt. law colleges

Madras High Court forms expert committee to oversee filling of faculty vacancies in government law colleges across State.

The Madras High Court on Thursday constituted an expert committee to monitor the process of filling the vacancies of 20 Associate Professors, 64 Assistant Professors and 60 Assistant Professors (pre-law) in 15 government law colleges spread across the State.

Justice Battu Devanand took note that 12 vacancies (60%) in the post of Associate Professor would have to be filled through promotion from among existing Assistant Professors and the rest of eight vacancies (40%) had to be filled through direct recruitment as per the rules.

Whereas, all the vacancies in the post of Assistant Professor had to be filled only through direct recruitment since it was an entry level post. Finding that no recruitment drive was conducted since 2018, he decided to constitute a committee for overseeing the process now.

He ordered that the three member expert committee shall be chaired by the High Court’s retired judge V. Bharathidasan and that senior counsel P. Wilson as well as retired Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Mythili K. Rajendran shall be its members.

Since amicus curiae R. Singaravelan claimed that not even a single scheduled tribe faculty was ever appointed in the government law colleges in the State, the judge requested the committee to ensure strict implementation of the rule of reservation while filling the vacancies.

The judge also empowered the committee to issue necessary instructions and guidelines to the Teachers Recruitment Board (TRB) for finalising the recruitment procedures and issuing a notification, calling for applications, in such a way that it does not get mired in any litigation.

The committee was also given the authority to decide modalities for setting the question papers, conducting the written examination, evaluating the answer sheets and also for holding the interviews. It was asked to constitute the interview board as per the University Grants Commission norms.