The Kerala High Court on Thursday quashed the appointment of Sahala P.M., wife of A.N. Shamseer, CPI(M) MLA from Thalassery, to the post of assistant professor in science on contract basis at the School of Pedagogical Sciences.
The court also directed Calicut University to appoint the first rank holder Bindu M.P. to the post.
The court issued the directive while allowing a petition filed by Ms. Bindu challenging the appointment of the MLA’s wife. According to her, though she got first rank in a walk-in interview held on June 14, 2018, second rank holder Ms. Sahala had been appointed.
The university took the stance that the MLA’s wife had been appointed as per the rules of reservation.
The petitioner contended that the university had earlier made an appointment from the open category for the post of assistant professor in language education in March, while in July the university appointed one candidate from the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) to the post of assistant professor in mathematics.
Had the university strictly followed the reservation rules, the appointment to the post of assistant professor at the School of Pedagogical Sciences should have been made from the open category. Besides, the rules of reservation were not followed for contract appointments. It was to appoint the wife of the MLA that the university had resorted to reservation rules.
Court’s observation
The court observed that the post of assistant professor at the School of Pedagogical Sciences was a single cadre post. Therefore, there could not be any reservation in a single cadre post. The appointment to the post should have been made from the open category.
The university took the stance that the last appointment was made from the general category. Therefore, the later appointment had to be made from the reservation category. It argued that as there were no candidates from the OBCs or the SC community, the post had to be given to a candidate from the Muslim community.
