Gauhati High Court orders 'rationalization' of method

Award of marks during selection of Assistant Professors

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: The Gauhati High Court has allowed the Higher Education Department of Assam to continue with the process of recruitment of Assistant Professors to Government and provincialized colleges of the State, but has added the proviso that it should first "rationalize" the distribution of specific marks in the selection process for academic record, submission of research paper, clearing of tests like NET, SLET etc.

The petitioners, who are aspirants to the posts of Assistant Professor, had challenged the validity of an Office Memorandum issued by the Higher Education Department on January 24 this year, which stipulated that 72 marks out of 100 would be awarded to respective candidates on the basis of marks secured in HSLC, Higher Secondary, Degree and Postgraduate examinations. The petitioners contended that this new guideline of the Higher Education Department was a clear violation of the UGC Regulations of 2010 regarding appointment of teachers in colleges and universities.

However, the Higher Education Department's counsel argued that the UGC Regulations, 2010 were not mandatorily applicable in case of the Government and provincialized colleges of Assam since these are not wholly funded by the UGC. The State Government provides the bulk of the funds and is consequently entitled to some discretion in the matter of selection of Assistant Professors, the counsel submitted.

The court agreed with the submission that the UGC Regulations are not mandatorily applicable in their entirety in case of the Government and provincialized colleges of Assam.

Nonetheless, the High Court also observed that "But, however, we take note of another aspect of the matter that the real concern of the petitioners is that some of them have acquired their qualifications about 10-15 years back and have demonstrated certain materials on record to show that the strictness of the marks in the qualifying examination that prevailed about 10 to 15 years back was much more stricter than what was in the later years. In view of the differences in the marking methods that prevailed, the petitioners claim that they have formed a class with a reasonable classification from all such other candidates who acquired their qualifications at a later period. In view of such variation, if 72% weightage is to be given to the marks obtained in the qualifying examination and other research papers, the candidates who have acquired their qualifications in the later years even without their PhD and M Phil degrees, in comparison, will be awarded more marks in the selection than those candidates who acquired their qualifications about 10-15 years back, even when the marks obtained by such candidates in respect of PhD and M Phil are also included… The marks given in an examination are numerical quantification of a performance. If the numerical evaluation over two different periods of time are made by following a different standard, such numerical evaluation across the board may not indicate the true merit evaluation of the person concerned. In other words, a person securing numerically lower marks in an earlier examination cannot be said to be of a lower merit than the candidate who secured numerically higher marks in the later examinations.

"Secondly, by applying the same law to two classes of people, i.e. one class of candidates who were subjected to a stricter evaluation in the qualifying examinations and another class who were subjected to a more liberal method of evaluation, the provisions of Article 14 of the Constitution of India would be violated," the Court pointed out.

As such, the court directed the Higher Education Department to proceed with the selection process, but only after "the method of rationalization" of award of marks is adopted.

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