Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Dec 6: High Court today imposed the penalty on SKIMS authorities for unnecessarily dragging the candidates to the court and directed them to finalize and appoint these candidates for post of Assistant Professor in the department of Neurosurgery, Plastic Surgery and Pediatric Surgery.
The appeal filed by SKIMS against the writ court judgment has been dismissed with costs of Rs 5000 by the Division Bench of Justice Ali Mohammad Magrey and Justice D S Thakur and directed the authority (SKIMS) to proceed in the matter in terms of the directions of writ court verdict.
Writ court while allowing the writ petition of aggrieved candidates had directed the SKIMS to finalize the selection and appointment of the aggrieved candidates. Instead of implementing the judgment, the SKIMS approached the Division Bench by way of an appeal challenging the judgment on the ground that the objections in opposition to the writ petition have not been considered by the single bench in its right perspective.
It is SKIMS which had issued an Advertisement Notice No. 07 of 2016 dated 05.09.2016, inviting applications from the eligible candidates for various posts including the post of Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery, Plastic Surgery and Pediatric Surgery and the last date of submission of forms was fixed as 25th September, 2016. The respondent Institute/ appellant herein had fixed the “effective date up to which the requisite Experience must be completed” as 30th June, 2016.
Court said, the aggrieved candidates have admittedly completed their DM/ M.Ch degree well before the last date of submission of forms but the Institute before hand conveyed these candidates that they are not eligible to participate in the selection process on account of requisite qualification/ degree of DM having been completed after the cutoff date, which compelled them to file a writ petition before the writ court.
“The controversy being projected in this LPA appears to be wholly unnecessary as the advertisement notice in question leaves absolutely no scope for any confusion” DB said adding “the appellants’ contention that the finding of the writ court, vis-à-vis the cutoff date for obtaining degree for the posts in question, is erroneous is unfounded”.
DB said, the cutoff date is always the last date of submission of forms and the effective date, prescribed in the advertisement notice, was only with respect to the experience, therefore, the writ court, DB said, has appreciated the matter in its right perspective. “Since the petitioners/ respondents were admittedly holding their DM/M.Ch degrees, therefore, there was no requirement of experience, as such, the aggrieved candidates were very much eligible for the post”, reads the order of DB.
DB has held that it must be mentioned that the matter has been prolonged unnecessarily by the appellant Institute firstly by issuing communications to the respondents about their ineligibility to compete in the process of selection and subsequently by filing the present LPA as the issue involved has been stretched too far to survive for three long years of litigation.
“It does not require one to be a rocket scientist to determine the issue involved as the plain reading of the advertisement notice makes it lucidly clear that the aspiring candidates had to have the requisite experience by 30th June, 2016, and the last date fixed was 25th September, 2016, and it was provided therein that the candidates with DM/ M.Ch do not need to have any experience”, DB recorded.
Court said, the issue has obviously been blown out of proportion for no good reasons, therefore, not only the LPA is required to be dismissed, but the appellant institute is required to be burdened with costs also for the unnecessary litigation.
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