Cuttack, Jan. 16: The Orissa High Court has refused to interfere in the fixing of the upper age limit for lecturer post applications at the state’s government colleges.
The court expressed disinclination to interfere after the state government said it has decided to amend the Odisha Education Service (College Branch) Recruitment Rules, 2009, which related to age.
The court made it clear that the recruitment should be undertaken only after amendment of the rules. A petition had sought the court’s intervention for modifying the upper age limit.
After a gap of 25 years, the state government had decided to fill up vacant posts of lecturers in different disciplines in Group-A of the Odisha Education Service (College Branch). However, it fixed 33 years as the upper limit for application.
In 2013, the Odisha Public Service Commission had invited applications to fill up 282 posts of government college lecturers in 18 disciplines.
The petition, filed by Sukanta Chandra Panigrahi, 41, a lecturer in physics with a private college, had sought modification of the age limit.
The petitioner had pointed out that the Odisha Public Service Commission had issued an advertisement for filling up posts of lecturers in government colleges of the state after a gap of 25 years.
He had contented that fixing the upper age limit was not in conformity with the practice and procedure adopted by Utkal University and the National Eligibility Test (NET) conducted for lecturers.
Besides, an advertisement issued by the Odisha Public Service Commission for recruitment of assistant fisheries officer (Group- B) had prescribed 44 years as upper age limit, he had pointed out.
His petition had stated that the NET, conducted jointly by the Council for Scientific and Indusrial Research and University Grants Commission, for Junior Research Fellowship and lecturership has no prescribed upper age limit.