The Madras High Court on Friday sought the response of Union Ministry of Human Resource Development to a public interest litigation petition seeking a direction to constitute a committee of technical experts to suggest a transparent recruitment process for appointment of faculties in IITs, (Indian Institute of Technology), NITs (National Institute of Technology) and IISERs (Indian Institute of Science Education and Research) across the country.
The first Division Bench of Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M. Sundar directed the petitioner V.B.R. Menon, who argued the case in person, to serve papers related to the case on Assistant Solicitor General Su. Srinivasan and adjourned the hearing to October 13. During the course of arguments, the petitioner contended that the recruitment system in vogue in the premier educational institutions was completely opaque leading to large scale brain drain.
Though clear cut norms had been laid down for admission of students in those institutions, he said, “the candidates applying for faculty positions in the institutions are not aware of the exact criteria for short listing or the weightages given for different components of selection process or the exact methodology adopted by the individual Institutes.”
He claimed that the institutes had not even published the recruitment criteria on their websites.
Uniform criteria
Further, stressing the need for laying down uniform criteria for recruitment in all IITs, NITs and IISERs in the country, he contended that the absence of such uniformity had led to arbitrariness and subjectivity in appointment of faculty in those institutions.
The petitioner claimed that many talented Indian academicians working abroad were hesitant to come back to the country only because of the uncertainty in getting recruited in the institutes here.
Lack of a uniform and transparent recruitment process had “become a source of corruption, secrecy, mediocrity and irregularities in the selections and appointments of faculty members in NITs, IITs and IISERs,” Mr. Menon alleged. He sought for a direction to constitute a committee for modifying the existing recruitment process and coming up with a “uniform, transparent, accountable and effective mechanism” for appointment of faculty in institutes of national importance.
