The Allahabad High Court has dismissed a petition challenging the ongoing interview for appointment to the post of Assistant Professor in the Department of Sanskrit, Allahabad University.
A Single Bench of Justice Siddharth passed this order while hearing a petition filed by Dr Amita Singh And 8 Others.
The petition has been filed on behalf of 9 petitioners praying for quashing the list of candidates called for interview by the Allahabad University under unreserved category for the post of Assistant Professor in the department of Sanskrit.
Further prayer has been made for direction to the competent authority to shortlist the candidates for interview after following the principles of natural justice for the post of Assistant Professor and call 15 candidates against one vacancy advertised by the University as per Advertisement dated 28.09.2021.
At the very outset the counsel for the University, Kshitij Shailendra, has objected to the filing of a single writ petition on behalf of 9 petitioners. He has submitted that as per Order 1, Rule 2 C.P.C, the court should direct all the petitioners to file separate writ petitions since the petitioners have not given specific cases of each petitioner in the pleadings when all the petitioners have different objections to the selection procedure adopted by the University.
Counsel for the University has also objected that the writ petition of the petitioners is not maintainable since quashing of the list of the candidates called for interview has been sought. No selected candidates has been implemented as respondent in writ petition and the writ petition has been filed like a public interest litigation praying for quashing of the entire selection list of eligible candidates.
Counsel for the petitioners has not submitted any reply to the aforesaid preliminary objections raised on behalf of the counsel for the University but has proceeded to argue the case on the ground that the interview for the post of Assistant Professor in subject Sanskrit is in process and hence, in view of the urgency the petition should be heard regarding the claims of all the petitioners.
He has submitted that the screening committee has erred in calculating the API marks of the petitioners and before recording the final marks, the screening committee should have afforded opportunity of hearing to the petitioners as per the principles of natural justice and only thereafter the candidates should have been shortlisted for interview. His second argument is that the University ought to have called 15 candidates against one post. The calling of 8 candidates for one post was arbitrary in the past at the University.
The Court noted that,
Regarding second argument of the counsel for the petitioner, Counsel for University has placed before the court judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of H.C Pradeep Kumar Rai and others, vs Dinesh Kumar Pandey and others; AIR 2015 SC 2342, wherein the Apex Court refused to interfere with the call of 3 candidates for one post.
Further the writ petition lacks pleadings regarding the case of a petitioner individually. The selected candidates have also not been implemented as respondents in the petition.
The Court in view of the above consideration, dismissed the writ petition.