‘We worked like regular teachers’: Despite court relief, two ad-hoc faculty at Delhi University caught in red tape

Every four months, their contract was renewed. “We found ourselves back at the same pay grade. There was no yearly increment,” said Mehak.

Eight years later, little has changed.

“We’re still ad-hocs,” said Namita.

“We taught through the pandemic, without a break… There was no support from the institution for online teaching at all,” said Mehak.

“There were no vacations,” she added. “We were continuously going on and on, teaching, teaching.”

In July this year, the Delhi High Court ruled on their plea filed in 2022, saying they were “entitled to the relief of regularisation” as it came down strongly on the university for “consciously using ad-hoc appointments as a substitute for regular employment”.

The duo had sought regularisation of their employment and quashing of a DU notification, which laid down revised guidelines for screening or shortlisting candidates for direct recruitment to the post of assistant professor in various departments — which, they claimed, was applied arbitrarily to excluded long-serving ad-hoc faculty like themselves.

In September, however, the university filed a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court, seeking a stay on the High Court’s order, arguing: “The impugned judgment sets a wrong precedent by permitting ad-hoc teachers to claim regularisation of their services, which is impermissible under law.”

DU said the court had “erred” in holding that an ad-hoc appointment could lead to a legitimate expectation of regularisation and that this “interferes with the University’s autonomy”.

A long fight

Namita and Mehak are among a handful of DU’s ad-hoc teachers who have legally challenged the system.

“We were told we’re wasting our time, money,” said Namita. “But it was also mentally exhausting… we would go and meet our lawyer, sit there, come back at night, go back to the department again.”

Both women have deep roots in academia.

Mehak, 39, studied German and Psychology at Gargi College, followed by a Master’s and a PhD enrolment in DU. She has cleared the UGC-National Eligibility Test (NET).

Namita, 51, pursued an integrated Master’s from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), then trained in Germany as a translator. She returned to India to do a German Teachers’ Training course. She also pursued her M.Phil from DU and PhD from JNU. She has a NET qualification.

“When it came to work. there was nothing that set us apart from our colleagues who have permanent jobs,” Namita said. “We were teaching core courses, running the programme.”

The teachers, in their petition, had said neither had been shortlisted for regular interviews despite meeting the University Grants Commission’s eligibility norms such as possessing the required postgraduate qualifications, clearing NET or holding a PhD, and fulfilling the academic and research criteria laid out in the 100-point evaluation system.

On November 12, 2021, the university issued new screening guidelines that lowered the shortlisting threshold from 75 to 65 marks under its 100-point system. Unlike the earlier rules, which allowed the benchmark to be relaxed if too few candidates qualified, the revised norms fixed the 65-mark cut-off and set a limit of 30 candidates for the first post and 10 for each additional vacancy.

In its order, the HC bench of Justices C Hari Shankar and Ajay Digpaul had noted: “The petitioners were not engaged for a finite project or stop-gap arrangement, but have been entrusted with core instructional and administrative responsibilities… [Their] continued exclusion from the zone of regularisation, despite fulfilling all eligibility conditions and having rendered long and meritorious service, is violative of Articles 14 and 16…”

It had also underlined that their prolonged engagement by DU “demonstrates that the petitioners have been treated as indispensable to the functioning of the Department.”

Even after the judgment, the teachers said, there was silence from the university.

They wrote twice to the Vice-Chancellor — in July and August — requesting the University to adhere to the High Court order.

When contacted, Vice-Chancellor Yogesh Singh told The Indian Express that he was not aware of the matter and asked to contact Registrar Vikas Gupta.

The Registrar did not respond to calls and messages.

A senior official at the varsity administration told The Indian Express, “This was clearly a stop-gap arrangement. The two members were not eligible and did not appear before the selection committee and did not give an interview. This would be a violation of the statutes and would create a wrong precedent in other cases… it would also be a violation of the right to equal opportunity. Which is why we appealed to the Supreme Court in this case.”

Both women, meanwhile, said they continued in DU because they love teaching — and because they can’t afford to leave.

“I have a home loan to pay,” said Mehak. “I can’t give up on my financial independence.”

Namita added, “My elder daughter is 21, she just finished graduation. My younger one is in Class 12. I want to be financially independent. Since I expect my husband to contribute equally to the household chores, I also want to contribute equally to the family income.”

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