A Vice-Chancellor should have a minimum teaching experience of 10 years as a professor in a university and his or her name should be recommended by a search-cum-selection committee. The appointment of a Vice-Chancellor (VC) is to be made from the names recommended by the search-cum-selection committee, the Supreme Court held in a judgment on Thursday.
A Bench of Justices M.R. Shah and M.M. Sundresh referred to Section 10(3) of the University Act, 2019 which provided that the committee should prepare a list of three persons for appointment as VC based on their qualification and eligibility.
The judgment dealt with a challenge by Professor Narendra Singh Bhandari, whose appointment as VC of Soban Singh Jeena University was set aside by the Uttarakhand High Court last year.
The contention against Mr. Bhandari’s appointment was that he did not have the requisite 10-year teaching experience as professor of the varsity. He had only 8.5 years’ experience as professor until he was appointed as member of the Uttarakhand Public Service Commission in 2017. However, he made the case that while serving in the Commission he was on long leave and his lien continued on the post of professor. He was appointed VC in 2020.
“Merely because his lien was continued on the post of a professor, it cannot be said that he continued to teach and/or he was having the teaching experience during the period of lien. Even considering Article 319 of the Constitution, while working as a member of the Public Service Commission, he could not have rendered any other work on any other post,” Justice Shah, who wrote the judgment, held.
The court also rejected his argument that he was supervising Ph.D scholars while serving as a member of the Public Service Commission, and this ought to be considered as part of his teaching experience.
“Supervising Ph.D scholars cannot be said to be having teaching experience as a professor in the university,” the court said, upholding the High Court verdict.
This judgment has come shortly after an earlier judgment by the top court where it had set aside the appointment of Dr. Rajasree M.S. as the Vice-Chancellor of the APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University, Thiruvananthapuram, in Kerala. As in this judgment, the court, in the Kerala case, had underscored the importance of selection of the VC from a panel of names recommended by a search committee of academically eminent persons.
