Governing body of Hindu College vs Dr. Ratan Lal & Ors
Background of the case-
An appeal by the Governing Body (GB) of Hindu College was made against a judgment dated 27.11.2018 which was passed by the learned Single Judge allowing the appeal of Respondent No. 1, requiring GB to undertake a new appointment procedure for the post of Principal of the College.
BENCH
CORUM:
JUSTICE S. MURALIDHAR and JUSTICE I.S.MEHTA
FACTS OF THE CASE-
The University of Delhi informed Hindu College about the entire procedure and guideline for the appointment of the Principal of the college through the Centralised Online Registration Portal. The entire procedure was divided into various series of activities namely, examinations of applications by the PSC, eligible candidates finalized by the screening committee, selection by the election committee and finally the appointment by the Apex Selection Committee of the University. The candidates were qualified according to their API score for the interview round which was first calculated by the candidate himself and later evaluated by the Selection Committee. Respondent no. 1 gave himself the score of 496 which was later bought down to 95 by the Selection Committee. Since the qualifying score was 400, the Respondent no. 1 could not qualify for the interview. 10 candidates were eligible for the interview whereas 15 candidates could not qualify. Respondent no. 1 asked for the clarification regarding the marks that was allocated by the committee in the API. The committee later revalued the scores of six candidates including Respondent no. 1 whose score later became 128. The single judge allowing the appeal of the Respondent no. 1, who accused the committee of being partial towards Respondent no. 5 and was pre-determined to be The principal of the College; directed the Selection Committee to reconduct the entire selection process as there was no clarity regarding the basis of the API score is given to the candidates. The Governing Body of the Hindu College has now filed a Writ petition being aggrieved by the judgment of the Single Judge.
ISSUE-
Whether conducting the selection process again will be a fair decision?
Judgment-
The Hon’ble Court found that the pleading concerning mala fides were nonexisting and all allegation regarding the Screening Committee of appointing a ‘close relative’ as an Advisor to the Appellant is also too vague to be considered. Thus the Court has decided to set aside the impugned judgment of the learned Single Judge regarding the fresh selection process for the post of principal of the Hindu College.
Read Judgment here:
[embeddoc url=”http://lobis.nic.in/ddir/dhc/SMD/judgement/24-04-2019/SMD24042019LPA7272018.pdf” download=”all”]
