By Paras Nath Singh for TwoCircles.net
The case of the appointment of Lt. Gen (Retd.) Zammeruddin Shah as the Vice Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) is in its final stage of adjudication in the Supreme Court. In all probability, the UGC Regulations 2010 pertaining to the eligibility criteria for the appointment of the VCs in the Central universities would be made legally binding for the AMU.
In that case, the AMU will have to do away with its existing arbitrary, discriminatory and opaque selection processes of the VC which mandates the Executive Council (EC) to pick up five names to be sent to the AMU Court, which in-turn forwards these three names out of five names to the Visitor, the President of India. As of now, in the case of AMU, academic merit is the biggest casualty as nobody knows as to from where these five names are taken in the panel by the Executive Council. It has been observed that canvassing by the aspiring candidates for being empanelled as the VC of AMU becomes rampant and there have also been allegations of horse-trading at times reported in the media.
It would be too early to write-off General Shah for one cannot predict the decision of the Apex Court. If some insiders are to be believed, the worst scenario being anticipated is that the AMU administration may ‘convince’ the Apex Court to allow him to continue with certain riders. How naive are the academics on the campus! They should grow wiser to understand that if his appointment would not be quashed then it is highly unlikely that he would be allowed to continue without riders. On the other hand, one cannot altogether rule out the possibility of the Supreme Court coming down heavily on the AMU for having circumvented the UGC Regulations 2010. If that happens, which is highly likely, then the post of the Vice Chancellor of AMU would have to be necessarily advertised in the national dailies as was done in the case of the Jamia Millia Islamia. In fact, majority of the Central Universities have opted for this transparent and objective procedure of appointment where eligible academicians submit their applications along with their CVs, and thereafter names of the meritorious academicians are shortlisted for further processing and onward transmission to the Visitor.
In the plethora of cases, the Apex Court has upheld the supremacy of the UGC Regulations in as much as laying down of the essential qualifications, viz., Measures for the maintenance of standards in higher education. For instance, in the Kalyani Mathivanan vs K.V. Jeyaraj and Others [AIR 2015 SC 1875], the Apex Court held that the UGC Regulations are mandatory for the Central Universities. A full bench of the Kerala High Court headed by Justice Antony Dominic in its judgment dated 23.02.2016 held that, “having regard to the law laid down by the Apex Court in Kalyani Mathivanan case, in the event of a repugnancy between the UGC Regulations and the Regulations framed thereunder and the University enactments and the statutes, the latter will be void. Therefore, the fact that the University Statutes were not amended is inconsequential”.
Thus, the Aligarh community should not look at this case from the perspective of Gen. Shah only. The ramifications of the decision in the case would be felt far and wide and for a long time to come.
Even the Union Ministry of HRD may not escape the blame of violating the UGC Regulations. In March 2012, the government approved the appointment of a an IAS (non academic) as AMU’s Pro Vice Chancellor, which, on some other grounds (not on the ground of eligibility), had to be annulled by the Court.
Subsequently, when the AMU’s EC and Court forwarded the name of a non academic, Gen. Shah, the Union government did not peruse his eligibility laid down by the UGC Regulations 2010, and it went on to appoint him as the VC of AMU.
Coming to the UGC Regulations, let it be said with emphasis that the UGC Regulations have been a fiasco of sorts. The UGC has always been very inconsistent in its policy regarding the Measures for the maintenance of standards in higher education. Every other day, UGC comes out with amendments to its Regulations contributing to further chaos in the higher education.
The UGC as a statutory body has created a mess through its notorious inconsistent policy regarding the NET / PhD requirements for appointment at the entry level of the teaching post of the Assistant Professors in the colleges/universities. The inconsistencies and flip flops on the part of the UGC is perhaps a major contributing factor towards non-compliance of the UGC Regulations by the universities. For instance the Regulations 2010 have already undergone as many as 5 amendments, out of which 3 amendments have been done in the last few months with bewildering alacrities.
Yet another complexity and contradictions are there in the fact that the bodies like Medical Council of India (MCI), AICTE, NCTE, etc., have laid down radically different eligibility criteria of recruitments and promotions of the teachers of the respective departments of studies. In such a scenario, the universities remain utterly confused, as to which one to be adhered to. One wonders, why cannot there be some necessary coordination among the relevant bodies with regard to laying down the criteria for recruitments/promotions.
All such inconsistencies and contradictions make UGC appear as a non-serious body, hence the violations with impunity!
Another question of importance is: why doesn’t the UGC penalise the Universities violating its regulations, by cutting fund? After all, it has got such mandate under section 14 of the UGC Act 1956 which provides that UGC may withhold the grant to the Universities in case its regulations are not followed.
It would be unfair to say that only the AMU has violated the UGC Regulations 2010 in connection with the appointment of the Vice Chancellor and Pro Vice Chancellor. Other institutions too have violated these Regulations and the Courts have been swift in correcting such errant institutions and shunting out ineligible VCs, at times en masse, as happened some time back in the case of Dr. Ram Tawakya Singh Vs. State of Bihar and Ors.{ [2013]9SCR117]}
The author is a L.L.M student at the National Law University, Odisha.