Kirandeep Kaur vs State of Punjab and others

K. Kannan, J.—The writ petition challenges the selection and appointment made to the post of Lecturer in Guru Nanak Studies in the 2nd respondent-Guru Nanak Dev University at Amritsar. The petitioner is a Postgraduate in Religious Studies from the Punjabi University and amongst the subjects in his M.A., one of the subjects was Philosophy of Religion and another was Philosophy of Sikhism. She has done her Directorate in Philosophy in "Guru Granth Sahib Vich Pat Da Sankalp". The advertisement was issued by the University on 03.05.2010 for appointment to the post of Lecturer in "Guru Nanak Studies". The qualification, which is necessary as per the UGC norms for Lecturer is good academic record with at least 55% of the marks or an equivalent grade of B in the 7 point scale with letter grade O, A, B, C, D, E and F at the Master''s degree level in the relevant subject from an Indian University or an equivalent degree from a foreign University,

(emphasis supplied).

The contention is that the selected candidate was a Postgraduate in Punjabi and by the terms of the requirement of UGC norms, the relevant subject for "Guru Nanak Study" could be a Postgraduate Study in Punjabi, which is a language study.

2.Learned counsel appearing on behalf of the University points out that the Department of Guru Nanak Studies is truly inter-disciplinary in nature and runs the following courses as inter-disciplinary departments. "M.A, Religious Studies, M.Phil Religious Studies, M.A. Philosophy and M.Phil Philosophy. " Any person having passed Master''s Degree in any of the subjects in Punjabi, History, Religious Studies, Philosophy, Sanskrit, Sociology is eligible for the post of Lecturer in the Department of Guru Nanak Studies. The counsel would refer to the list of at least 11 names, who possessed Master''s degree in various studies other than Religious Studies and out of the 11 names set out in the written statement, 4 persons had done Master''s degree in Punjabi, 1 person in Sanskrit, 3 persons in History, 2 persons in Philosophy and 1 in Sociology. The attempt of the University was, therefore, to show that it is not essential that a person must be a Master''s graduate in Religious Studies per se but any allied study, which is in any subject that has a bearing to the various courses, which are offered by the University themselves could be appropriate. Learned counsel would also contend that the persons, who were the interviewers, were persons drawn from various fields of specialization and all of them were not religious exponents and even amongst the various departments, there had been several persons, who had Postgraduate or doctoral works in pure languages. Learned counsel would also point out to the candidates, who had responded to advertisement for the same post, who were all not essentially in Religious Studies but who had done their Post-graduation or M.Phil Courses in Language Studies.

The 3rd respondent, the selected candidate, has filed a reply pointing out, inter alia, that apart from the fact that Department of Guru Nanak Study was inter-disciplinary in character, the Courses contained for religion and selected civilization included a wide variety of subjects that did not necessarily deal with Religious Studies. Even the Department of Guru Nanak Studies set up in 1971 had its object the study and research on the life of Guru Nanak Dev and their cultural and religious impact in the context of Indian and World Civilization. The Department an inter-disciplinary as well as teaching-cum-research oriented and it is, therefore, wrong on the part of the petitioner to contend that a Post-graduate and a Directorate in Languages could not be taken as duly qualified. The counsel also states that the 3rd respondent had obtained a Doctorate in Semiotic in "Bani Shri Guru Teg Bahadur" and according to him, the 3rd respondent was not essentially specialized only in Punjabi language study and the vehicle to that of great religious expositions themselves could be only through a language and Punjabi was a very important vehicle to understand the teachings and the religious texts.

In my view, the issue is not what Guru Nanak Dev University could offer as course of studies and it is perfectly understandable that the teachers and students are pursuing various types of courses, which are not essentially religious courses. Even on an argument that several of the Lecturers have been essentially Post-graduates in Languages such as Punjabi or Sanskrit does not really answer the situation, for it is nobody''s contention that Guru Nanak Dev University cannot have teachers or lecturers drawn from various streams of study including languages. The only consideration that would be relevant is whether the advertisement had any particular specification and whether the selected candidate conformed to such a specification. While calling for advertisement for Teachers, if they had sought for persons in languages, there would be no error. Indeed, the very same advertisement for Lecturers calls applicants from various disciplines: to reproduce the classes of persons, which the advertisement calls for:

Lecturers (Pay Scale", Rs. 15600-39100+6000 AGP) Mathematics-2 (Gen 1. SC/ST-1)

GRD School of Planning-2 (reserved for SC/ST)

Architecture- 1 (reserved for SC/ST)

Chemistry-2 (Gen- 1, SC/ST-1)

Computer Science and Engg.-2 (Gen-1, SC/ST 1)

Electronics Technology-2

Commerce & Business Management-2

Sports Medicine & Physiotherapy-1

(Subjects : Biomechanics, Electrotherapy and Exercise Therapy etc.) @TAB9 = Molecular Biology & Biochemistry-1 Education-3

Guru Nanak Studies-2 (Gen-1, SC/ST-1)

Psychology-2

It could be noticed that even Lecturers in Computer Science, Electrotherapy, Exercise Therapy and Mathematics with the main subject of Study have been the subjects of call through the interview. It is not the petitioner''s case that there could not have been Lecturers in Mathematics or Chemistry or Electrotherapy. On the other hand, his contention is that: (i) if there was a Lecturer meant for Guru Nanak Studies; (ii) and if the UGC required norm is that the person shall possess a Master''s degree "in the relevant subject". The term, "relevant subject" cannot mean mere subject of languages or linguistics. Guru Nanak Dev or the Gurus may have been multi-faceted personalities. They may have known different branches of living sciences but when there is reference to Guru Nanak Studies, I cannot allow this to be understood in any sense that it could relate to a specialization in Punjabi. In the same advertisement, if the Lecturer''s post had been notified for Punjabi, there would have been no mistake. It would become probably possible for several persons, who had Punjabi for the post-graduate courses or for Ph.D would have responded. I would even suspect that by merely referring to Guru Nanak Studies, several persons, who had obtained post-graduate courses in pure languages may have been misled into thinking that they were not appropriately qualified to respond to the post. I am citing a hypothetical example only to show that it will be unfair for the petitioner to be pitted against a language post-graduate as a competitor for his selection, if the advertisement condition itself show such a prospect.

Learned counsel appearing for the respondent refers to a judgment in Rajbir Singh Dalai v. Chaudhari Devi Lal University, Sirsa and another,1 2009(4) R.S.J. 179 that once experts have regarded "Political Science and Public Administration " to one of the disciplines to be selected for the post of "Reader, Public Administration", the opinion of the experts that Political Science and Public Administration were inter-related and inter-changeable subjects cannot be questioned by a Court. The candidate, who possesses Master''s degree in Public Administration could be, therefore, eligible for the post of Lecturer in Political Science and vice versa. The reference to the Hon''ble Supreme Court judgment on the above is inappropriate for the facts in our case. As I have already outlined if the advertisement called for postgraduate courses in languages, the selection now made should have been possible. We are only interpreting the terms of the advertisement and the eligibility as brought through the advertisement and not dwelling on an issue of whether for a University that has an inter-disciplinary approach to Gurudev Teachings, there could not be a relevance for a language teaching or proficiency of a person, who has language for his doctoral work. The counsel also refers to a judgment of this Court in Suresh Singh v. The Vice Chancellor, Punjab University, Sector 14, Chandigarh and others, 2 in C.W.P. No. 10574 of 2006 dated 26.04.2010 where this Court was considering an objection relating to a person not possessing a National Eligibility Test in the subject of Library Science was sought to be rejected out of consideration for the post of a Librarian, when the issue was whether the University was proper and justified in declining an approval for the appointment of a particular person to the post of a Librarin when he also held sufficient number of years of experience and he had also passed M.Phil in Library Science that relieved the requirement of having to secure a NET qualification. The Court was considering the case of a person, who was even more qualified in the particular branch of Science while the requirement was a lesser NET qualification. I will not, therefore, find any reason to apply the judgment in Suresh Singh''s case as well.

Learned counsel appearing for 3rd respondent says that she has got a Directorate in Semiotics and therefore, it cannot be taken as merely a post-graduate work in Punjabi language. The term Semiotics itself is the state of signs and sign processes and it is divided into three branches: Semantics: Relation between signs and the things to which they refer; their denotata or meaning Syntactics: Relation among signs in formal structures Pragmatics: Relation between signs and the effects they have on the people who use them, (courtesy Wikipedia) The terminology as explained in Wikipedia is that the term which was spelled semeiotics, derives from the Greek (semeiotikos) "observant of signs" (from semeion, "a sign, a mark") and it was first used in English by Henry Stubbes (1670 p.75) in a very precise sense to denote the branch of medical science relating to the interpretation of signs. John Locke used the terms semeiotike and semeiotics in Book 4, Chapter 21 of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690).

I do not see as to how this could help the situation for the 3rd respondent, for it cannot be stated to be a relevant subject for the particular branch of specialization, which the advertisement was calling for.

I would, therefore, hold that the selection made of the 3rd respondent did not conform to the requirement as per the advertisement and the petitioner was entitled to consideration in preference to 3rd respondent. The selection of the 3rd respondent is quashed and the matter shall be assigned to the University which shall constitute the Selection Board afresh to reconsider the decision as regards the rejection of the petitioner''s candidature. The petitioner''s relative grading vis-a-vis other candidates in the manner of their assessment at the time of interview previously held, may also be taken note of at the time of finalization of selection. With these observations, the writ petition is disposed of.