Indian Kanoon - Search engine for Indian Law

8. Be that as it may, the grievance of the petitioner relates to the rejection of his candidature on the ground that he does not possess 5 (five) publications. By drawing attention of this Court to the 17 publications which the petitioner submitted to the authorities for assessment of the API Score as required under the Rules, learned counsel for the petitioner submits that perusal of the said publications would indicate that, even if some of the Articles are not found suitable by the Subject Experts assessing the said publications, it cannot be said that all the remaining publications do not conform to the Regulations or norms. Further, the Experts were supposed to give their scores after making the assessment as claimed by the petitioner, which they did not do.

9. It has been submitted by learned counsel for the petitioner that it is only the Selection Committee which has the final say in the matters relating to promotion and the Selection Committee will deal and assess the said Self-Appraisal Marks given of the petitioner as well as Assessment given by the Experts and thereafter, take the final decision as per the eligibility and suitability and make necessary recommendation. It has been submitted that in the present case, the Subject Experts had rejected the candidature of the petitioner on the ground that the petitioner does not have five Page No.# 5/7 publication works and they have not given any API Scores. The leaned counsel for the petitioner contends that such procedure adopted by the University authority is vitiated and since there is a procedure lapse, this Court may intervene appropriately.

11. In the present case, the papers/publications submitted by the petitioner were scrutinized by an Expert. The said Expert apart from finding only one paper conforming the norm, did not find other publications conforming the norm, because of which, the University referred the matter to another Subject Expert to ascertain the view of the First Expert. Unfortunately, the second Subject Expert also agreed with the view of the First Expert.

In the result, the University found that the petitioner is not eligible. Accordingly, the University concluded that the petitioner did not possess the eligibility criteria of possessing minimum five publications and as such, since the petitioner did not fulfil the requirement, it was deemed not necessary to give the API score and accordingly, it was not placed before the Selection Committee.

20. Accordingly, it is directed that the entire matter relating to the petitioner may be referred by the University to the Selection Committee concerned and the Selection Committee will make its own assessment and give their final API Score after making assessment of the publications submitted by the petitioner. The Selection Committee will accordingly make their own assessment of the suitability and eligibility of the candidates for promotion to the post of Professor in spite of the findings given by the two experts as mentioned above. In other words, the opinion of the two experts may not come in the way of the Selection Committee to make its own independent assessment as regards the API score.