HC pulls up KU over replacing contractual with similar arrangements

Srinagar, Jul 5: The High Court of J&K and Ladakh has pulled up University of Kashmir for replacing contractual faculty with similar arrangement in the Department of Law, terming it “malafide exercise of power”.

Deciding a batch of related pleas, a bench of Justice Sanjay Dhar, directed the KU to allow contractual as well as faculty members engaged on academic arrangement to continue till such time when core faculty is put in place in the Department of Law.

“So far as the legal position as regards the permissibility of replacing the teaching faculty of an educational institution engaged on contractual basis or academic arrangement basis by a similar arrangement is concerned, the same, is beyond any cavil, inasmuch it is not permissible for an institute to resort to hire and fire policy and to replace contractual/temporary arrangement by a similar arrangement,” the bench said.

“The replacement can only be resorted through regularly appointed staff/teaching faculty,” the court said and allowed the petitions filed by those engaged on academic arrangement basis and whose engagement was extended from time to time either by virtue of interim orders passed by the Court or otherwise.

In their petitions, the aggrieved contractual had challenged various advertisement notices whereby the Varsity invited applications for engagement of contractual Lecturers on academic arrangement basis for the Session 2023 and 2024.

In response to the pleas, the court noted that the action of the KU authorities in disengaging the services of the petitioners and replacing them by ad hoc arrangements like visiting lecturers and guest lecturers was nothing but a malafide exercise of power.

“By doing so, the respondent University intends to do away with the service contracts of the petitioners but in the process, they are also doing a great disservice to the students’ community who are being left to the mercy of guest/visiting lecturers without there being any continuity.”

The Court said: “Instead of creating a core faculty, as envisaged under Rule 17 of the Rules of Legal Education 2008”.

The University, it said, seems, was resorting to hire and fire policy which is detrimental to the interests of not only the petitioners but also to the larger interests of the student community.

The petitioners had projected their grievance through advocates G A Lone, Mujeeb Andrabi, Sheikh Mushtaq, Owais Shafi, Manzoor Ahmad Ganai, Arif Sikandar, Asifa Padder , Laraib Anjeelena and S M Saleem.