High Court quashes appointment at Pondicherry University pollution study centre; order serves a damning indictment on irregularities in the appointment

Madras High Court quashes illegal faculty appointment at Pondicherry University, orders fresh recruitment process for Assistant Professor.

In an damning indictment of the irregularities committed by the Pondicherry University in facilitating and sustaining the appointment of a preferred candidate as a faculty member in the Centre for Pollution Control and Energy Technology/Environmental Engineering, the Madras High Court has quashed the appointment and called for a fresh recruitment process.

In the order, Justice Battu Devanand J. held that the entire selection process and appointment to the post of Assistant Professor in the centre was “illegal, arbitrary and malicious”, and directed the university to issue a fresh notification forthwith to fill vacancies for the post of Assistant Professor (earlier Lecturer) in all categories, including the OBC.

The judge was adjudicating separate writ petitions challenging the appointment to, and continuance in, the post by Tasneem Abbasi at the Centre for Pollution Control even after it was established that an OBC certificate produced for the appointment was fake and cancelled by a competent authority. The petitioners said that the candidate, however, was allowed to participate in the selection process for an unreserved vacancy in the post of Assistant Professor in the department, which was headed by her father, and appointed in 2010 without break of service and with pay protection.

In its counter, the university said that the respondent was earlier appointed as a Lecturer in the OBC Category when she submitted a certificate for the same, issued by a competent authority of the Puducherry government. Consequent to the cancellation of the certificate, her appointment against the OBC position was treated as vacated. However, as resolved by the Executive Council, the respondent was permitted to attend the interview on November 28, 2010, for the post of Assistant Professor under the general category, and chosen after the selection committee was satisfied with her qualification and merit.

Justice Devanand, while passing the orders, noted “all is not well in the administration of the Pondicherry University”, and the issue represented “a classic case of failure of the statutory institutions vested with the statutory functions.”

The judge further said that when the OBC certificate was cancelled, the university should have terminated her service as a lecturer, and initiated action against her for producing a false certificate. Instead, it allowed her to continue in the unreserved vacancy, invited her to participate in the subsequent election process for the unreserved vacancy, and appointed her.

Among the materials examined by the court were the reports of two committees — one constituted by the university; and the other on the direction of the Central Vigilance Commission — that had both submitted adverse findings against the appointment. The university-appointed three-member panel had said that the action of the varsity in allowing her to continue in the post even on a temporary basis, without taking action for producing a false OBC certificate, was against the basic principle of law, and called for scrutiny on the person acquiring M.Tech and PhD degrees during the concurring periods.