HC strikes down UGC’s five-year tenure rule for college Principals

Staff Reporter :

In a major breather to all senior college Principals affected due to five-year tenure rule introduced by University Grants Commission (UGC), Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court on Monday struck down the controversial clause and declared it to be arbitrary and unreasonable. The tenure of Principals was reduced to five years with a chance of reappointment of another five years by the UGC. A division bench consisting of Justice Z A Haq and Justice Manish Pitale, while allowing two petitions filed by college Principals aggrieved by curtailment of their tenure, quashed the Clause 5.1.6(d) of the UGC Regulations on minimum qualifications for appointments of teachers and other academic staff in the Universities and colleges and measures for Maintenance of Standards in Higher Education, 2010.

The High Court found no logic and legal justification behind these regulations and rejected UGC’s contention that it would lead to more efficiency as Principals would be on their toes. The petitioners, who were appointed as Principals at Gondwana Univerrsity and Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University (RTMNU) between 2012 and 2016 for a period of five years, claimed that Regulation and later amendment had converted permanent post of college Principal to a tenure post of 5 years and up to a maximum of 10 years. Earlier, a Principal once appointed could continue on the said post till attaining age of superannuation -- 62 years. Such illegal curtailment of tenure would leave Principals without any employment and had no nexus to achieve purported objective of improving the standards of higher education and administration of colleges, the petitioners claimed while dubbing the controversial clause as “manifestly arbitrary, whimsical and capricious.”

Defending the clause, UGC claimed that petitioners participated in the selection process knowing the tenure norm and hence could not now oppose the same. Besides, the tenure was fixed based upon an expert committee headed by S P Thyagarajan, former Vice-Chancellor of Madras University. About contention regarding lack of opportunity for employment and the employability of college Principal after expiry of tenure, the UGC claimed that the post of college Principal was feeder channel for a number of posts, including that of Vice-Chancellor, Registrar, Director of Examinations, Director of Knowledge Centre and several such other posts identified under Maharashtra Public Universities Act, 2016.

The High Court, while rejecting all justifications submitted by UGC, noted that the Regulation was totally arbitrary and scrapped it while unequivocally turning down the “keeping Principal on toes” argument. Conversion of a permanent post into tenure post was legally unsustainable and basis of classification did not appear to be based on an intelligible differentia, the High Court noted while wondering as to why only post of Principal was singled out for five-year term leaving aside other posts in academic sphere, including Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Professor.

While extending the benefit of this judgement to those petitioners who were yet to complete the tenure, the High Court made it clear that the petitioners whose tenure appointment were over would not be entitled to the benefit of this judgement. The High Court also stayed the judgement for three months as requested by UGC to enable it to move the Supreme Court. Adv Shreerang Bhandarkar appeared for the petitioners. Adv Arun Agrawal (UGC), AGP Tajwar Khan (State), Adv P B Patil (RTMNU), Adv Sandeep Marathe (Gondwana University) represented the respondents.