‘Scant regard for fairness in action’: Delhi High Court pulls up DU for putting recruitments of non-teaching staff on hold

Justice Jyoti Singh was dealing with a bunch of petitions, where the petitioners had applied for posts such as library attendant and laboratory attendant, following advertisements issued for the recruitment to the posts in 2021. DU published a list of 151 selected candidates in the order of merit for the post of laboratory attendant and 108 candidates for the post of library attendant in July 2023.

Subsequently, on August 18, 2023, DU published a list of candidates to whom an offer of appointment was issued based on their final selection in the written examination, and they were required to join within 15 days.

Since many petitioners were living in far-flung parts of the country, it took five to seven days to receive offer letters. Only nine in the category of laboratory attendant and 15 in the category of library attendant had reported by August 24, 2023.

The next day, however, DU put the joining of the candidates on hold, and on August 29, 2023, DU notified that the matter of the selection of the candidates who had been offered the appointment letter was under examination. DU decided to put the joining of all the candidates on hold, including those who had reported. Many of the candidates had resigned from their previous jobs by then. The petitioners challenged the two notifications issued by DU on August 25 and 29, 2023.

DU contended before the high court that following informal interactions held with the candidates, it was noticed that “their competency did not match the high marks scored by them in the written examination, raising a suspicion of use of unfair means” thus leading to their decision to put their appointment on hold.

Delhi HC notes informal assessments could lead to corruption

Justice Singh, while setting aside the varsity’s decision, noted that DU had not disclosed the officials who conducted the “informal interaction” with the candidates and also recorded, “it is not understood how the alleged incompetency of merely nine candidates could lead to a conclusion that the other selected candidates, who had not even joined, were incompetent or lacked knowledge enough to obtain higher scores in the examination.”

Noting that there was no complaint on the conduct of the examination or of unfair means, the court observed, “On joining, the only exercise that remained was the verification of their documents…There was neither any occasion nor reason for the University officials to enter into the exercise of informal interaction to assess the competency of selected candidates. The stand that the interaction was for deciding the postings in various laboratories, is also an afterthought.”

“There is, in fact, a danger in endorsing this kind of an informal interaction, assuming there was one. If it is left open to employers to informally interact with selected candidates and judge their calibre, knowledge or competence, at the time of reporting for joining, the selection process will become subjective and open doors to arbitrariness, pick and choose, favouritism, making the examination meaningless, besides breeding corruption. Any selected candidate could then be thrown out on the basis of an informal interaction,” Justice Singh held.

Holding that the court is “unable to find any flaw” in the conduct of the examination on any aspect which could lead to a conclusion that the process is vitiated, the court set aside the two notifications by DU.

“This Court is of the view that University has miserably failed in establishing use of any unfair means in the examination in question and what comes to light is that by a process of reverse engineering for motivated reasoning, by analysing a skewed data the University is seeking to illegally justify its erroneous decision to shelve the process of selection, which cannot be accepted.”

Directing the varsity to complete the remaining formalities of document verification of the candidates, and that the candidates should be eligible for all consequential benefits upon their appointment, the court further observed, “Before drawing the curtains, I may pen down that because of the arbitrary and illegal action of the University, Petitioners have lost nearly two crucial years of their lives and careers.”

“Some of the Petitioners had in fact resigned from their earlier jobs when offer letters were received from the University and many have become overage for appearing in any other examination,” it held.