The court reaffirmed that participation in a selection process does not guarantee a right to appointment, emphasizing strict adherence to minimum qualifying marks as per applicable regulations and the authority of the Selection Committee.

JUDGMENT :

JAY SENGUPTA, J.

1. This an application for directing the respondent authorities to appoint the petitioner as Professor in the Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies, reserved for the Scheduled Caste, pursuant to an advertisement being No. Est./Advt/6529/2019 dated 13.02.2019 for the direct requirement of the said post.

2. Learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner submitted as follows. The University of Calcutta (hereinafter referred to as the ‘said University’) by an Advertisement being No. Est./Advt/6529/2019 dated 13.02.2019 invited application for direct requirement to the post of Professor, Associate Professor and Assistant Professor in different Departments of the said University. The petitioner applied in the Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies for the post of Professor, reserved for the Scheduled Caste. The petitioner being a Scheduled Caste candidate applied for that one vacancy in the scheduled caste category. The petitioner was then working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of AIHC under the said University. While working in the AIHC Department, the petitioner had throughout enhanced his qualification and had made several publications and had done extensive research work. The research publications of the petitioner were done from the year 1996 to 2019. The interview was held on 06.02.2020 before the Interview Board and the petitioner participated in the interview. Law was that, in the absence of a Scheduled Caste candidate as the case might be, to fill up such vacancy, such vacancy would remain unfilled. There is no provision of carrying forward such reserved vacancy. As per the guideline from the University Grant Commission, there had to be strict implementation of Reservation Policy. In case of a reserve vacancy, it had to be filled up in the existing recruitment process and in the absence of any specific notification for carry forward, the reserve vacancy could not be kept vacant, when there was already a qualified person. In terms of the Guidelines for University Grant Commission, Guideline 8 provided the procedure to be followed in matters of reservation for Teaching as well as Non-teaching staffs. 8(a)(i) SC/ST: Candidates should be interviewed separately. 8(ii): One member of the Interview Committee should belong to the SC/ST category. 8(v): The Roster, 40 – point or 100- point as the case might be, should be applied to the total number of posts in cadre only. Reliance was placed on R.K. Sabharwal vs. The State of Punjab ( AIR 1995 SC 1371 ). Cadre was based indicated by seniority list governing the members with the same pay scale. From the UGC guidelines, it was made clear that during the interview a SC and ST representative must be present and he must put his signature on the score sheet of interview. However, in the instant case, there was no such signature and it was enough to understand that there had been arbitrary decision. The respondent No. 3-6 had filed their affidavit. The petitioner had read and understood the purport of the affidavit. The petitioner was aware of the settled proposition of law that mere participation in the selection process did not create any right. But, the petitioner disagreed that he was found not suitable for the post of professor under Schedule Caste category in the Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies. The petitioner had participated for one vacancy out of the two existing vacancies. One vacancy was for the General Category and the other for the Scheduled Caste Category.