Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Nov 7: The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh has pulled up the University of Kashmir (KU) over its “hire and fire” approach towards contractual law teachers, ruling that the varsity cannot routinely dump one batch of ad hoc faculty and bring in another when the teaching requirement continues.
A Division Bench of Justices Sanjeev Kumar and Sanjay Parihar, while deciding a cluster of Letters Patent Appeals (LPAs) filed by KU, partly upheld and partly modified a Single Judge order that had protected law teachers engaged on academic arrangement basis in the university.
The case arose out of petitions filed by several contractual teachers, including Saba Manzoor, Noor Afshan, Mohd Ashraf, Naiyara Khan, Danish Yaqoob and others, who were engaged in the School of Law and other departments on an academic arrangement/contractual basis. As the academic session came to an end, KU moved to disengage them and initiate a fresh process to hire another set of contractual teachers.
Reiterating settled legal principles, the Division Bench held that an ad hoc, temporary or contractual employee cannot be replaced by another ad hoc, temporary or contractual employee, and can only be substituted by a regularly selected candidate appointed under the applicable recruitment rules.
On this core point, the Bench found no fault with the Single Judge’s directions restraining KU from replacing the existing contractual teachers with a fresh batch of contractuals if the teaching requirement persists.
At the same time, the court drew a clear line between engagements made against clear, substantive vacancies and those made purely to supplement existing faculty strength for a particular academic session – such as when new courses are started or student intake increases. The Bench observed that most of the petitioners were engaged as an additional teaching resource and not against sanctioned posts.
In such situations, it said, they cannot claim a right to continue till creation of posts and regular selection, though they do enjoy protection from arbitrary replacement by another similar arrangement where KU still needs their services.
Significantly, the High Court directed that where KU continues to need academic arrangement/contractual staff to support core faculty, it must first consider the existing contractual teachers, who have already gained teaching experience in the department. The Bench said giving preference to such teachers, subject to eligibility and suitability, would serve both institutional and student interests, instead of bringing in entirely new faces every year.
The court also cautioned KU against resorting to “manipulation or machination” by merely changing nomenclature of posts – such as rebranding full-time contractuals as part-time or guest faculty – to circumvent court directions. It made it clear that guest or part-time faculty cannot be used as a backdoor substitute for core or whole-time contractual teachers, and can only be engaged for specific papers, subjects or lectures in accordance with regulatory norms.
While upholding protection against replacement by another set of contractuals, the Division Bench narrowed its scope. It clarified that the bar on replacement will operate only in those departments where there is a continuing requirement of teaching faculty and regular appointments have not been made so far. If the need for academic arrangement itself has ceased in a particular department or course, the teachers engaged for that limited purpose cannot insist on continuation beyond their contractual term, the court held.
In a strong regulatory intervention, the court directed that a copy of its judgment be forwarded to the Bar Council of India (BCI). The BCI has been asked to immediately visit the University of Kashmir, assess the requirement of core law faculty for both three-year and five-year law programmes, and issue necessary directions, including for creation of additional posts where needed.
The Bench also called upon the BCI to ensure that KU’s arrangements for temporary faculty strictly adhere to the Rules of Legal Education, 2008, framed under the Advocates Act, 1961, and are used only to supplement, and not substitute, the mandated core faculty strength.
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