Vivekanand Tamta and Others vs The State of Uttarakhand and Another

Barin Ghosh, C.J.—Petitioners herein are contractual lecturers. They were appointed as such for a term specific. An advertisement has been published by the Government, inviting applications for being appointed as contractual lecturers. The qualifications prescribed therein, Petitioners possess. However, the contention of the Petitioners is that the Government must take steps for filling up the posts of lecturer by giving permanent appointment to persons to be selected, but who has qualification as the Petitioners have. The Government�s decision that in addition to the qualification the Petitioners have, candidate to be so appointed on permanent basis as lecturers should either have NET or Ph.D., stands in the way of the Petitioners� contention that the Government should appoint people having qualifications similar to that of the Petitioners on permanent basis as lecturers. Petitioners contend that while by the Notification dated 31st August, 2009 National Council for Teacher Education has prescribed qualification of persons to be appointed as lecturers, it has also empowered the Government to relax the same. It is also the contention of the Petitioners that the Director of Higher Education has already written to the State Government that in view of dearth of people having NET or Ph.D., any addition to qualifications prescribed by National Council for Teacher Education, will make it not possible for the State to have appropriate number of lecturers to supply the current permanent vacancies available in different colleges and as such, National Council for Teacher Education may be moved for that purpose.

The posts of lecturer, with which we are concerned in this writ petition, are available in colleges and post graduate colleges, affiliated to Universities which are governed by the provisions of the University Grants Commission Act, 1956. While under the University Grants Commission Act, 1956 University Grants Commission is entitled to make regulations, defining the qualifications that should ordinarily be required of any person to be appointed to the teaching staff of the University, having regard to the branch of education in which he is expected to give instructions, the National Council for Teacher Education, constituted by and under the National Council for Teacher Education Act, 1993, is entitled to lay down guidelines in respect of minimum qualifications for a person to be employed as a teacher in schools or recognized institutions. The power thus varies. While the person to be appointed in the schools or in institutions, recognized by the National Council for Teacher Education, minimum qualification prescribed by the National Council for Teacher Education would hold the field, and while such minimum qualification may be taken to be a guiding factor, but that will not do when a person is to be employed as a lecturer in a college or in a post graduate college, affiliated with a University. In such circumstances, the regulation, made by University Grants Commission, defining the qualifications that should ordinarily be required of any person to be appointed to the teaching staff of the University, having regard to the branch of education in which he is expected to give instructions, will hold the field. In the matter of lecturers, to be thus appointed in a University, the State Government, on the basis of power to relax granted by National Council for Teacher Education, cannot, in law, relax the minimum qualification prescribed by the University Grants Commission. In such view of the matter, the Director of Higher Education was absolutely wrong in making a recommendation to the State Government to approach National Council for Teacher Education for relaxing the University Grants Commission�s prescribed qualification.

Being aware of the fact that in relation to colleges stipulations prescribed by University Grants Commission are binding, in the Notification dated 31st August, 2009, National Council for Teacher Education has unconditionally stated that compliance of such stipulations shall be mandatory.

It may be possible that the State Government is unable to entice appropriate people, having appropriate qualifications, for being appointed in the colleges as lecturers and, accordingly, is unable to supply the vacancies in the substantive posts of lecturer. But the fact remains that the State Government, without express permission of University Grants Commission, is not entitled, in law, to lower the qualifications than what has been prescribed by the University Grants Commission in its regulation.

At the same time, the State Government has to run the colleges and, accordingly, it is permissible for the State Government to continue with the stopgap arrangement of engaging contractual lecturers, who do not possess appropriate qualifications prescribed by University Grants Commission. Those persons, under no circumstances, not having the prescribed qualification, can earn any equity at any point of time in their favour, nor can seek any mandamus from this Court to compel the Government to give them any appointment in any college as lecturers in a substantive vacancy.

The writ petition is, accordingly, utterly frivolous and the same is dismissed.