Hyderabad High Court grills AP on vacancies of lecturers

A division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Dilip B. Bhosale and Justice S.V. Bhatt was dealing with a PIL by P. Jayabharath Reddy from Kadapa district seeking to declare the action of the government in appointing and continuing with lecturers in government degree colleges on adhoc basis which was contrary to GO. Ms. No. 47, dated May 14, 2007 as illegal.

G. Vidyasagar, senior counsel, appearing for the petitioner brought to the notice of the court that more than 750 lecturers are working in the government degree colleges in the state as contract lecturers and many of them neither have Ph.D nor are qualified either for the State Level Entrance Test or NET.

He said as per the UGC norms, persons having Ph. D or qualifying either in SLET or NET are only eligible to hold the post of lecturer in a degree college. He urged the court to declare their appointments as illegal and direct the government to fill up the post with eligible candidates.

Justice Bhosale said removal of 750 lecturers at a time will have an adverse effect on students of the colleges.

The counsel representing the lecturers told the bench SLET was not conducted in the state for the past several years.

When the judge enquired with B. Devanand, counsel for AP, about the facts in continuing with the contract lecturers, he replied that the lecturers have been working for the past 10 to 12 years and they are in the posts based on the orders of the Administrative Tribunal passed time to time.

He explained that 286 vacancies exist in degree colleges and the government is planning to take up regular recruitment. The bench told him to find out whether it is possible to conduct SLET every six months so that contract lecturers can appear for the exam and place a report before it by October 30.