Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Oct 3: High Court has quashed the selection and appointment of nine candidates as Assistant Professors (APs) in the discipline of Dogri.
These candidates are Ganga Sharma, Sandeep Dubey, Padam Dev Singh, Yash Pal Sharma, Shobha Rani, Suresh Sharma, Narsingh Dass, Nazia Choudhary and Rajesh Manhas.
After hearing Advocate Aditya Gupta for the petitioner whereas Advocate FA Natnoo for the PSC and Advocate Rahul Pant for the private respondents, Justice Dhiraj Singh Thakur observed, “counsels for the Public Service Commission and the private respondents have submitted that the selection and appointment should be upheld on the ground that the two experts had remained associated not only with the Public Service Commission in the past but had remained as experts for the University of Jammu”, adding “this argument is untenable”.
“Merely because a mistake has been perpetuated in the past would neither justify its replication nor would it form a good precedent for future”, High Court said, adding “if the practice of appointment of ineligible persons in the select panel is bad, it must change for the better”.
Justice Thakur further observed, “Public Service Commission does not appear to have conducted any exercise with a view to conduct a background check on the suitability for appointment as an expert in the present case. It appears that they only followed the University of Jammu, who had earlier appointed them as experts”.
With these observations, Justice Thakur held that selection of private respondents and appointment, if any, pursuant thereto shall stand quashed. “The Public Service Commission shall continue the process of selection from the stage of interview by constituting a selection committee afresh. The experts to be nominated in the select panel should be from the subject of Dogri with formal qualification in the subject. Let the process of selection be completed within a period of two months”, High Court directed.
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