The Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) will resume interviewing candidates applying for the post of assistant professor from November 9.

The commission will first interview candidates for geography and then botany and zoology. The decision follows a Patna High Court directive. A single bench of Justice A.K. Tripathi on September 7 directed BPSC to go ahead with the appointment of assistant professors in different state colleges. The state had stalled the appointment process in August, citing delay in recruitment process.

"Based on the high court directive, the commission has decided to interview candidates who had applied for 3,345 posts of assistant professor," BPSC secretary Prabhat Kumar Sinha told The Telegraph.

The court directive apart, the commission had also sought legal opinion. "Based on the high court directive and legal opinion, the commission has decided to interview candidates who applied," Sinha said.

The high court order was passed on a petition by Archana Bharti after the state government asked the state public service commission to put the recruitment process on hold in August.

Based on a state government order in 2014, the commission had started interviewing candidates for the 3,345 posts. Interviews for seven subjects, including Maithili, English, philosophy, economics, physics, psychology and home science, were completed. The board even carried out appointments for Maithili. Results have been declared for English, but successful candidates have not been issued appointment letters. Results are still pending for the other five subjects.

"The court order is a welcome step as many candidates will finally be interviewed," said Satish Patel, a BPSC candidate for history.

Education department sources said the government had put the appointments on hold as RJD chief Lalu Prasad and, later, chief minister Nitish Kumar wanted 80 per cent quota for Bihar residents. Eligibility criteria demands that candidates must either have cleared the National Eligibility Test (NET) or done PhD as per 2009 regulations. As state universities were late in implementing the UGC's 2009 recommendations on PhD (many introduced it in 2012 or later), few in the state are eligible. So most applicants were from outside Bihar.

"Once BPSC completes appointments, the government will take a decision on fresh appointments," education department special secretary K Santhil Kumar said. Sources said the state's reservation roster would be followed in fresh appointments. Fresh recruitments would be carried out based on vacancies till December 2017.

For this the education department has asked respective universities to submit exact vacancies. The education department estimates that around 9,000 teachers will be recruited through the process.