The Madras High Court on Tuesday permitted the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development to go ahead with the selection of faculty members to various Indian Institutes of Technology subject to a rider that such appointments would be subject to final orders to be passed by the court on a writ appeal pending before it.
Passing interim orders on the appeal preferred by E. Muralidharan, an IIT-Madras alumnus, Justices Huluvadi G. Ramesh and M. Dhandapani said, “If there is any violation in the process of selection without adhering to the principles of reservation under Article 14 and 16 of the Constitution, it would attract serious penal consequences.”
The appeal had been preferred against an order passed by a single judge of the High Court on June 1, 2017, refusing to issue a writ of quo warranto to IIT-M Director Bhaskar Ramamurthi directing him to explain the authority under which he was holding the post. The single judge had held that Mr. Ramamurthi had been appointed in perfect accordance with the rules.
However, on a sub application preferred by Mr. Muralidharan alleging that the reservation policy was not followed in letter and spirit while recruiting faculty members for IITs, the single judge directed the HRD Ministry to take note of a Supreme Court judgment and “issue appropriate guidelines/instructions in the matter of reservation for SC, ST and OBC candidates in selection and appointment of posts in IITs.”
