No appointments till JNU can "revisit, reexamine and recast" roster for all posts: Delhi HC

A two-judge Division Bench of the Delhi High Court has ordered the Jawaharlal Nehru University not to go ahead with any further appointments of professors and associate professors until they "revisit, reexamine and recast the point-based roster for all posts" advertised alongside the advertisements of the two posts which have been quashed earlier. The Single Judge Bench of Justice Jyoti Singh had held JNU responsible for de-reservation of two faculty positions that were not in accordance with the post-based reservation system. The Division Bench's judgement extends that exercise to all posts.

The Division Bench modified the judgement by Justice Singh and said, "The University will have to revisit and reexamine and recast the point-based roster, for all posts and in the light of the judgment of the Single Judge (Bench) and in accordance with the post-based reservation system." Justice Rajiv Sahai Endaw and Justice Sanjeev Narula, who were hearing the plea, also added that the appointments already made will not be affected. The University cannot initiate any "fresh recruitment process in pursuance to the advertisements which were impugned in the writ petition or issue any fresh advertisements" till fifteen days after the publication of the new roster points on its website.

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The earlier judgement had made it clear that JNU is guilty of stripping the reserved category of one post and changing the reservation category from SC to ST of another post and so the HC quashed the two particular advertisements calling for applications. Calling out the university for making a "blatantly false statement" in the additional affidavit, the court had said that JNU has not calculated the reservation properly and they did not treat the current vacancies and the backlog reserved vacancies as distinct and separate groups. The rule is to calculate reservation on total strength and not on the number of vacancies. "No attempt has been made to allocate specific reservations to vacant posts to make up the shortfall," the court had said.

The JNU Teachers' Association (JNUTA) welcomed the judgement and urged the Ministry of Education to take appropriate steps. "The implication of the Division Bench order is that JNU is now obliged to ensure that the cut of over 30 in the posts reserved for SC/ST candidates is corrected and the backlog posts restored," read a statement from the JNUTA. "JNUTA demands that the Ministry of Education immediately come forward and state in no uncertain terms the unacceptability of such actions that make a mockery of the larger responsibility of promoting social justice