HC quashes appointment of four asst profs in AMU

The Allahabad High Court today quashed the appointment of four assistant professors in Aligarh Muslim University, terming the process as "wholly illegal" and ordered the university authorities to proceed for fresh selection process for the posts as per the law.

The bench of justices Sudhir Agarwal and I A Khan quashed the appointments in the Department of Statistics and Operation Research (DSOR) on a plea by Dr Kamal Ullah, a former guest lecturer in the department, challenging the recruitment.

Dr Ullah had challenged the appointments contending that the four - Dr Irfan Ali, Dr Shakeel Javed, Dr Jaki Anwar and Dr Mohd Faizan were appointed as assistant professors in DSOR despite having applied for the higher post of associate professors and having been interviewed for the same.

The petitioner pointed out that the AMU had advertised several posts of professor, associate professor and assistant professor on November 8, 2013 and the four had applied for the posts of associate professor and had even faced the interview for the same.

Yet the university authorities wrongly appointed them on the posts of assistant professor, Dr Ullah contended.

While quashing their appointment as assistant professors, the bench termed them as "wholly illegal" saying they had neither applied for the said posts nor they faced the interview for the same.

Additionally, the selection committee had no power to downgrade the posts and appoint the candidates on the lower posts of assistant professor in place of associate professor.