Ravenshaw University in Cuttack. Telegraph picture

Cuttack, Dec. 4: Academic activities at Ravenshaw University continue to be badly hit by large-scale vacancies in faculty due to the tardy progress in filling up the posts.

The institute has been facing acute shortage of teachers with more than 50 per cent of the 267 sanctioned posts remaining vacant.

Sixteen of the 22 departments have been affected by the shortage. Ten departments are functioning without a professor. In 2006, when the institute became an university, the state government sanctioned 153 posts. “Of this, 26 posts were lying vacant when the state government sanctioned 114 more posts in June this year. The recruitment process for filling up of 140 posts started on June 23,” said registrar Padan Kumar Jena.

Orissa High Court took up Ravenshaw’s faculty shortage case, along with that of five other universities, three months ago after one Dhirendranath Bhoi had filed a letter petition seeking intervention against disorder in academic activities in the state-run universities due to shortage of teachers. Taking note of large-scale vacancies in faculty, the court had, on August 11, directed the varsity registrars to fill up the posts preferably within three months.

Ravenshaw sources said advertisement was published on June 23 to recruit 16 professors, 29 readers and 95 lecturers. But, the selection process has so far conducted interview for 78 posts in school of physical sciences, school of life sciences, school of social sciences and school of mathematics.

Interview of 1,442 aspirants had been over for posts in botany, zoology, chemistry, physics, statistics, economics, political science, philosophy and mathematics between August 20 and November 17. But, the appointments are yet to be made. The varsity has not been able to declare the results due to a legal hurdle.

The court had expected a compliance report on the deadline, along with progress in recruitment. In pursuance of it, the registrar had stated: “The results have not yet been declared for the reasons of restraint orders issued by the high court.”

The high court had issued the order allowing the varsity to carry on with the selection process, but restrained it from taking any final decision.

The interim restraint orders were issued on five separate petitions filed by applicants challenging the advertisement the university had issued on June 23, 2014, inviting applications for the 140 posts in different departments.

The five petitions are pending disposal and the restraint orders are yet to be vacated.