The Supreme Court on Monday scrapped the recruitment process for 1,091 assistant professors and 67 librarians in Punjab government colleges, sharply criticising the exercise as arbitrary and politically motivated.
A bench comprising Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and K Vinod Chandran ruled that the recruitment process, initiated by the Congress-led Punjab government in 2021, violated statutory norms and appeared designed to secure electoral gains ahead of the 2022 assembly elections.
“The entire process is arbitrary and was not undertaken in the interest of the state or higher education, but for narrow political purposes,” the court observed, adding that the state failed to justify its deviation from standard recruitment procedures.
The court flagged the hurried timeline of the entire process—spanning barely two months from advertisement to issuance of appointment letters—as a sign of “executive hegemony” and “undue haste,” which raised suspicions of malafide intent.
Initially, the government had sought to urgently fill 160 assistant professor and 17 librarian posts for newly opened colleges. However, this was suddenly expanded to include 931 additional assistant professor and 50 librarian vacancies—positions that had already been referred to the Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC).
The court criticised the state’s decision to replace the University Grants Commission (UGC)-prescribed selection method, which includes an academic evaluation and interviews, with a single multiple-choice written test. It ruled this change to be not only arbitrary but also procedurally flawed.
“Discarding a tried-and-tested selection process without following due procedure renders the entire recruitment invalid,” the court said.
While the recruitment process began under former Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi's Congress government, the succeeding Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government supported the appointments in court, arguing that the state had the autonomy to devise its own recruitment norms.
The Supreme Court rejected this argument, noting that Punjab had voluntarily adopted the UGC regulations and was therefore bound to follow them, along with the requirement to route appointments through the PPSC.
“In a democratic system, fairness, transparency, and merit must underpin public appointments,” the court stressed.
Monday’s judgment upheld a 2022 ruling by a single judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court that had annulled the recruitment process. It also overturned a subsequent decision by a division bench of the High Court, which had revived the appointments in 2024.
Acknowledging the hardship this ruling might cause for candidates appointed under the now-cancelled process, the Supreme Court noted that the appointments were always subject to ongoing legal scrutiny. It has now directed the Punjab government to initiate a fresh recruitment drive in strict adherence to the 2018 UGC norms.
“A gross illegality like this cannot be allowed to stand. Even if we ignore the issue of political expediency, the process clearly lacked fairness and qualitative assessment,” the court concluded.
(This story is published from a syndicated feed)