Patna, July 7: The high court today asked the chancellor and the human resource development (HRD) department secretary to take steps within three months to fill up the vacancies of teachers in the colleges and universities of the state.
A division bench comprising Justice P.C. Verma and Justice A. Amanullah issued the directive hearing a PIL filed by one Vinay Kumar Singh seeking direction to the state government to fill up the vacancies of lecturers in the colleges and universities. Reacting to the directive, Patna University Teachers’ Association (PUTA) general secretary Randhir Kumar Singh said: “The government should immediately make appointments in the colleges and universities as it is affecting the teaching in the institutions. If the present system continues, the higher education might collapse.”
Disposing of the petition of Singh, the bench said: “The chancellor and the HRD secretary are directed to take necessary steps for the redressal of the grievances of the petitioner within three months, failing which liberty is given to the petitioner to invoke the powers available under Article 215 of the Constitution for initiating contempt proceedings.”
Appearing for the state government, additional advocate-general Lalit Kishore submitted that the government would take steps to fill up the vacancies of the faculty in the universities after the finalisation of the rationalisation scheme. The chancellor, who is also the governor of the state, has not given his approval to it so far. One round of meeting has taken place between the two committees constituted by chancellor and the HRD minister and they have involved certain criteria for examining the issue of rationalisation, Kishore added.
The petitioner’s counsel, Krishna Kant Singh, contended that government’s lackadaisical approach towards the higher education was proving costly. Keeping the posts vacant for over a decade has not only deteriorated the standard of higher education but has also been instrumental in migration of the human resource of the state, he said.
