Punjab and Haryana HC sets aside appointment of PEC director M K Arora

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Arora, also a professor at Civil Engineering Department at IIT Roorkee, was appointed as director of the PEC University of Technology on June 3, 2013.

The post was advertised on December 11, 2012. The petitioner was also one of the candidates who had applied for the post. The petitioner’s counsel Rohit Seth had submitted that the petitioner was among the nine candidates called for interview on March 12, 2013, in the room of Advisor to the Chandigarh Administrator. The interaction committee consisted of K K Sharma, the then Advisor to Chandigarh Administration; V K Singh, Finance-cum-Education Secretary; and Anil Kumar, Home Secretary.

But second interaction meeting was held on May 2, 2013, “by secretly calling some candidates” in which the petitioner was not called and Arora was finalised for the post, it was added.

“Petitioner has taught Prof M K Arora in eighties (1984-86) during his MTech and he is much junior in the length of service and experience to the petitioner in the Department of Civil Engineering, which is now IIT Roorkee, whereas Prof M K Arora has a Bachelor’s Degree from PEC, Chandigarh, which was a state government-run college only and not even a university,” reads the petition. The petitioner had submitted a number of representations to various authorities but to no avail.

Earlier, the High Court had raised questions on the selection process as to why wide publicity was not given with reference to the fact that the PEC director’s post shall be filled up by an eminent person from the field of technical education and why it was restricted to only various IITs in the country. The court had also observed that the selection committee held two rounds of interaction. In the first round the committee eliminated seven candidates and in the second round four names were considered, and one of the candidates who failed to appear in the first round of interaction was also allowed to participate. The court had also raised a question as to whether the selection committee members were competent to adjudge best and eminent persons from the field of technical education.