The court cannot substitute its opinion for the expertise of the Selection Committee and cannot sit as an appellate court over the Committee's decisions.

Valmiki J. Mehta, J.

W.P.(C) No.546/2014

1. By this writ petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, petitioner seeks the relief of quashing of the selection process conducted by the respondent nos.1 and 2/University of Delhi and the Head of the Urdu Department of the University, with respect to the four posts of Assistant Professors in the respondent no.2/Urdu Department of the respondent no.1/University. Petitioner prays that fresh interviews be conducted for selection.

2. The facts of the case are that the respondent no.1/University for its Urdu Department, vide advertisement dated 17.10.2013 advertised for filling of four posts of Assistant Professors. The eligibility criteria for consideration and short listing was prescribed, and thereafter the Screening Committee in terms of the eligibility criteria fixed for short listing, short-listed the candidates for appearing before the interview board. Petitioner was one of the short listed candidates and he appeared before the interview board but the petitioner was not selected and respondent nos. 3 to 6 were selected. Petitioner hence questions the decision of appointment of respondent nos. 3 to 6 on the ground that their selection is illegal and arbitrary.

3. On behalf of the petitioner, basic reliance is placed upon the judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of Dr. J.P. Kulshrestha and Others Vs. Chancellor, Allahabad University and Others (1980) 3 SCC 418, and para 10 thereof, and in which para the Supreme Court has observed that the interview process must be fair and it must have guidelines for marks and remarks about the candidates etc and the record of the selection process should be made available to the court whenever the court feels that it wants to examine the same to judge the lack of arbitrariness. Para 10 of the judgment in the case of Dr. J.P. Kulshrestha (supra) reads as under:-

“10. We may dispel two mystiques before we debate the real issues. Did the selection committee act illegally in resorting to the interview process to pick out the best ? We think not. Any administrative or quasi-judicial body clothed with powers and left unfettered by procedures is free to devise its own pragmatic, flexible and functionally viable processes of transacting business subject, of course to the basics of natural justice fairplay in action, reasonableness in collecting decisional materials, avoidance of arbitrariness and extraneous considerations and otherwise keeping with in the leading strings of the law. We find no flaw in the methodology of 'interviews'. Certainly, cases arise where the art of interviewing candidates deteriorates from strategy to stratagem and undetectable manipulation of results is achieved by remote control tactics masked as viva voce tests. This, if allowed, is surely a sabotage of the purity of proceedings, a subterfuge whereby legal means to reach illegal ends is achieved. So it is that courts insist, as the learned single Judge has, in this very case, suggested on recording of marks at interviews and other fair checks like guidelines for marks and remarks about candidates and the like. If the court is skeptical, the record of the Selection proceedings, including the notes regarding the interviews, may have to be made available. Interviews, as such, are not bad but polluting it to attain illegitimate ends is bad. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was right when be wrote : (The Negro is your Brother by Martin Luther King Jr. published in "119 years of the Atlantic" ed. by Louise Desaulniers, p. 515)

So I have tried to make it clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or even more, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.”

4. On behalf of respondent nos. 1 and 2, counter-affidavit has been filed and in which counter-affidavit it is stated by the University