Cuttack, Sept. 27: The higher education department is finding it difficult to fill up large number of vacancies in government colleges because of the controversy over fixing the upper age limit for candidates.

As a result, the recruitment process has been stalled.

After a gap of 25 years, the state government had decided to fill up vacant posts of lecturers in various disciplines in Group-A of the Odisha Education Service (college branch), fixing 33 years as the upper age limit for applicants.

The higher education department sent the required requisition to Odisha Public Service Commission (OPSC) on May 10 with a request to recruit and recommend the names of successful candidates for filling up 281 vacant posts.

Accordingly, the OPSC had issued an advertisement inviting applications for 281 posts of government college lecturers in 18 disciplines on June 26. But the government has not been able to impose the upper age limit as the OPSC advertisement has been challenged in the high court.

“The major ground for putting the government in the dock is that fixing of upper age limit does not match the procedure adopted by Utkal University or the National Eligibility Test (NET) conducted for lecturers,” a senior officer said. The state government has discontinued the recruitment process. The government had decided to bring amendments to the Odisha Education Service (College Branch) Recruitment Rules, 2009, which is related to the age limit.

“It is, therefore, requested that the OPSC not proceed with the recruitment of 281 college branch lecturers and wait for further communication from the government,” higher education additional secretary P.C. Pathy has written to OPSC special secretary.

The communication from the higher education department was issued two days after the high court issued notices to the OPSC on the petition filed by one Sukanta Chandra Panigrahi, 41, a physics lecturer with a private college in Bhadrak. The petition sought the court’s intervention for modifying the age limit prescribed in the advertisement.

“The court had not passed any interim stay orders. The division bench of Justice M.M. Das and Justice A.K. Rath, before which the matter came up last week, posted the matter for hearing along with reply from the state government on the petitioner’s additional affidavit,” said Panigrahi’s counsel P.R. Dash said.