HC dismisses petitions against contractual appointments of college teachers in Nagaland

DIMAPUR — The Kohima Bench of Gauhati High Court has dismissed a batch of 13 writ petitions challenging the appointment of assistant professors in government colleges across Nagaland, junking the petitions on grounds of maintainability and locus standi.

Eighteen petitioners, all members of the Nagaland NET Qualified Forum (NNQF), had file the case against more than 100 private respondents, the state of Nagaland represented through the chief secretary and officials of Higher and Technical Education.

They alleged that the state government had violated Office Memorandums issued in 1976, 2001 and 2016 by appointing assistant professors on contract basis without advertising the posts through Nagaland Public Service Commission (NPSC). They sought to quash the appointments and direct the government to fill both sanctioned and non-sanctioned posts through proper recruitment procedures.

Appearing for the state, Additional Advocate General V Suokhrie submitted that the appointments were made purely on temporary, fixed-pay terms to meet urgent academic requirements in government colleges, particularly following the introduction of postgraduate programmes.

She argued that the appointments were made against non-sanctioned or deputation vacancies as a stop-gap measure, and that “all available vacant posts of assistant professors has already been requisitioned and advertised over the years starting from 2013 to 2022 and there can be no advertisement at present as the private respondents are not holding sanctioned posts.”

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Senior Advocate CT Jamir, representing several of the private respondents, contended that most of the petitioners were not qualified at the time of the appointments they were challenging, and that some of the appointees had been serving since 2008, much before the petitioners obtained their NET qualifications. He further pointed out that certain appointments had been made following proper departmental selection or suitability tests, making a single, joint challenge untenable.

In its judgement, the court observed that most of the petitioners lacked locus standi as they “were not qualified and eligible to be appointed as lecturer/assistant professors at the time when most of the private respondents were engaged on fixed pay.”

It also noted that the petitions combined distinct causes of action by challenging appointments made at different times, in different subjects, and under varying circumstances. The bench remarked that the petitioners had failed to file replies to counter-affidavits and had not specifically challenged subsequent extension orders of the contracts.

Citing various Supreme Court rulings, the court reiterated that only an aggrieved and qualified person could maintain such a challenge, and that petitions filed after long delays were liable to be dismissed.

While dismissing the writ petitions without entering into the merits of the case, the court granted the petitioners liberty to file separate and properly constituted petitions if they so wished.

The bench also observed with concern that temporary contractual engagements continued in government colleges and urged the state government to take an early decision on creating and filling regular posts of assistant professors through due process.