HC: Let extension lecturers continue if workload enough

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 11

In a major reprieve for extension lecturers who filed appeals before the Punjab and Haryana High Court after being held ineligible, a Division Bench has allowed them to deliver lectures in case of sufficient workload and satisfactory work.

Regular appointments can wait

The High Court made it clear that the arrangement would continue till the state made appointments of regular lecturers possessing NET/PhD qualification.

“Since there are no newly appointed lecturers, the State of Haryana and other respondents are directed to allow the appellants to work continuously on the post they were holding on the date of the judgment by the Single Judge,” the High Court ruled.

The Bench of Justice MS Ramachandra Rao and Justice Jasjit Singh Bedi made it clear that the arrangement would continue till the State made appointments of regular lecturers possessing NET/ PhD qualification.

The matter was placed before the Bench after a bunch of appeals was filed against the State of Haryana and other respondents by Amrit Kaur and other appellants through counsel Suresh Kumar Kaushik, Arvinder Arora and Rakesh Nagpal. They had, among other things, challenged the dismissal of their initial petition by a Single Judge.

The Bench was told a large number of posts of lecturers/ assistant professors were lying vacant in the government colleges in the state. As such, the government took a policy decision to engage extension lecturers on a temporary/contractual basis to strike a balance between the teacher-student ratio.

The counsel for one of the appellants added the reason for the disengagement of the appellant was she was not fulfilling the eligibility criterion as per the norms adopted by the department subsequently vide instructions dated March 4, 2020

Taking up the matter, the Bench issued notice of motion before staying the operation of the impugned order passed by the Single Judge. The Bench asserted that the Single Judge did not apparently notice that a clause in the policy dated March 4, 2020, issued by Haryana Director-General, Higher Education, permitted the continuance of persons like appellants if there was adequate workload and their work was satisfactory.