Cuttack, April 27: Decks have been cleared for the state government to fill up the vacancies for the posts of assistant professors in the three state-run medical colleges.

Orissa High Court has given a clean chit to the eligibility criteria for the posts. The three colleges have nearly 350 vacant posts for teachers.

The government has not been able to fill up the vacant posts for over four years as legal dispute over the eligibility criteria dragged on first in the State Administrative Tribunal and later in the high court.

The government was left in a sticky situation since no resident doctors from the three state-run medical colleges were eligible to fill up the posts since the last four years. The Naveen Patnaik government had created the posts of senior residents utors for the first time in 2008. In 2009, senior residents were appointed for the first time and were declared as faculty members. They also underwent training in teaching as well as treatment.

The government also enacted the Odisha Medical Education Service (OMES) Rules, 2009, which specified that senior residents having postgraduate degrees with three years of experience would only be eligible for the posts of assistant professors.

Odisha Public Service Commission (OPSC) had issued advertisements inviting applications for 120 posts and 73 posts on August 17, 2010, and December 9, 2011, respectively.

As the government introduced the senior resident post in 2009, no doctors in the three state-run medical colleges had got three years experience by the time the advertisements were issued for the recruitment of assistant professors.

The government was left in a quandary when the recruitment was held up as the State Administrative Tribunal quashed the recruitment procedure in 2013 after 67 doctors filed petitions challenging the advertisements.

Disposing of the petitions on April 24, the high court, however, held that the eligibility criteria were justified and the advertisements issued by the OPSC were legally valid.

The division bench of Indrajit Mahanty and Justice Biswanath Rath directed the OPSC to proceed with the recruitment process by inviting fresh applications for the advertisement.

"The order is significant as it makes all the senior residents appointed in 2009 eligible to apply for the posts as they have the required three years experience," said Pravat Ranjan Dash, a counsel for one of the petitioners.

Around 232 senior residents were appointed in 2009.

The high court also directed the state government to regularise ad hoc assistant professors appointed in pursuance of an order given by the court in 2012.

The state government had informed the court that appointment orders for 138 ad hoc assistant professors had been issued and 129 doctors were recruited. The court expects the government to regularise the 129 ad hoc assistant professors by way of concurrence by OPSC through interviews within the next two months.