Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Dec 24: The High Court has imposed one lakh rupees as penalty on Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Jammu for denying the appointment to the duly selected candidate for the post of Laboratory Officer
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Justice Javed Iqbal Wani while imposing costs directed the Institute to appoint the candidate for the post with retrospective effect.
The court said the IIT wrongfully delayed and denied appointment to a duly selected candidate which is in clear breach of his legal and Constitutional rights.
This direction has been passed in a petition filed by one Irfan Yousuf, challenging the cancellation of his candidature for the post of Laboratory Officer (Material Science Engineering) pursuant to Advertisement Notification issued by IIT Jammu.
The petitioner had been working continuously in NIT Srinagar since April 2019, initially as a Technical Assistant on contractual basis and subsequently through outsourced agencies. His engagement, first directly with NIT Srinagar and later through outsourcing agencies, continued uninterrupted till July 2023, giving him well over the requisite three years’ experience prescribed under the recruitment rules for the post in question.
The IIT Jammu advertised vacancies for Laboratory Officer, including one post under the OBC category and he applied along with all requisite documents, including experience certificates issued by NIT Srinagar and the outsourcing agencies. Though his application was initially marked deficient for want of a salary certificate for a particular period, the deficiency was cured within time, accepted by the Institute, and he was declared eligible.
Following scrutiny, he was subjected to a written test and technical viva-voce, both of which he successfully cleared and was placed at Serial No. 1 in the waiting list in the OBC category in the final selection list. However, despite having verified his experience through NIT Srinagar, IIT Jammu subsequently sought re-verification from one of the outsourcing agencies – Laxmi Chand and Sons Pvt. Ltd., by writing to its Delhi office instead of its NIT Srinagar office.
On the ground that the experience certificates were “not verified” by the said employer, IIT Jammu cancelled his candidature through an email without affording him any opportunity of hearing.
The court after examining the pleadings, records, and the recruitment instructions, noted that the petitioner’s eligibility and experience had already been scrutinized and accepted by IIT Jammu at multiple stages of the selection process and found the action of the Institute to be self-contradictory and legally unsustainable.
“Rejecting the stand of IIT Jammu that the petitioner had furnished false or incorrect information, the Court held that the cancellation of candidature on the ground of so-called non-verification by one outsourcing agency was wholly unjustified, especially when the experience stood otherwise verified and was subsequently confirmed even by the said agency.”
“The respondents have wrongly and without any lawful justification cancelled the candidature of the petitioner and in the process, delayed and denied appointment to the petitioner in breach and violation of his rights available to him in law and the Constitution”, the court said adding “such arbitrary action entitled the petitioner not only to the principal relief of appointment but also to exemplary costs, as the denial of appointment was neither bona fide nor legally defensible”.
The court quashed the impugned cancellation of petitioner with the direction to IIT Jammu to offer appointment to him as Laboratory Officer and directed to pay Rs one lakh as exemplary costs to the petitioner within four weeks.
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