Observing that the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Dharwad, gave a go-by to the UGC guidelines in the process of selection to the post of assistant professor in food engineering, the High Court of Karnataka has directed the varsity to redo the selection process from the stage of drawing up from list of candidates.
The court pointed that the varsity had notified the provisional selection of a candidate from among the applicants merely based on the marks obtained in the qualifying exam without considering other parameters and scorecard method as prescribed in the UGC guidelines.
Justice M. Nagaprasanna passed the order while allowing a petition filed by Venu S.A., an applicant to the post. The petitioner had questioned the provisional selection list notified by the varsity on July 12, 2023.
The court said the applicability of UGC guidelines cannot be alien to the selection process as the varsity had adopted the score card method of the UGC guidelines for selecting teaching staff, and the Board of Regents adopted the said method on December 13, 2007.
Even the aspirant candidates were aware that the selection would be based on the scorecard method as per the UGC guidelines, the court noted.
As there are several traits in the scorecard method, which are necessary to be followed to assess the merit of a candidate, stopping at qualifying marks in selecting any candidate would run counter to the spirit of the notification adopting the guidelines of the UGC and would consequently run counter to the UGC guidelines itself, the court observed while asking the varsity to redo the process within eight weeks.
