RAJIV NARAIN RAINA, J.

1. There can be no doubt that the petitioner was wronged by a termination order issued by the Registrar of the respondent-University completely misunderstanding the instructions of the Vice Chancellor not to foreclose the employment but desist from assisgning a particular type of duty to the petitioner as expalined hereafter. The Vice Chancellor admits that he had never meant that the services of the petitioner should be terminated, but due to grave communication gap, the services of the petitioner were brought to an end by a stigmatic order. The University is also agreed that the Vice chancellor had no power to terminate the services of Lecturers, like the petitioner, as the power to do so was posited elsewhere, that is, in the Executive Council taking final decision.

2. The foundation of the action taken as it turned out was a mistake committed by the petitioner in paper-setting for a University examination. As an internal paper-setter, she repeated the same question in both sets while she was required to set two different question papers. The petitioner apologized for her mistake and undertook she would never repeat it. This is how the Vice Chancellor, somewhat irked, had ordered that she should not be made a paper-setter. But that did not mean that her services should be terminated. These are the sequence of events which this Court accepts as correct as are forthcoming from the paper-book.

3. However, the other side of the coin is that the petitioner was appointed against a leave vacancy in place of one Professor Dr. Pawan Budhwar, and therefore, the appointment was not of the regular kind, although the mode of selection was through fair and proper procedure adopted. Professor Dr. Pawan Budhwar did not return from leave.

4. Learned senior counsel Mr. Malik submits that there are instances in the University where in such a situation of appointments against leave vacancies, services of incumbents have been regularized in the past. That may be true but how would it help to bring relief of reinstatement after 18 years. It is far too late for this Court to do much in aid of the petitioner to return her to employment of the University. It is reasonable to believe she must have made a career elsewhere of whatever kind, good, bad or indifferent. Two decades is enough to lose skills of teaching and past academic milestones can never be retraced. It would neither be fair to her, the University and its students to be foisted a rusted mind. This is the inevitable consequence of passing time.

5. Be that as it may, it appears almost impossible if not hopeless to consider granting relief of reinstatement to the petitioner by setting aside the termination order, even though the order deserves to be set aside and the stigma removed from its face so that it does not hound the petitioner in future employment. But then, she has willy nilly lived with the dilemma for many irreversible years.

6. While keeping alive to all this, this Court is constrained with passage of 18 years, to disallow the claim and therefore this court is not inclined to interfere by ordering reinstatement or appointment of the petitioner to the post in public interest. Even if such an order was passed that would not confer permanency on the petitioner as it would put her back to the original position. Besides, after 18 years, and to repeat, the petitioner may have lost her skills altogether in teaching at University level having lost touch with her subject. The order of termination is neither legal nor valid. If the order is set aside, reinstatement is automatic in service law unlike under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 where workman can be granted compensation in lieu of reinstatement. In the present case, the reinstatement is not found tenable. Does that mean the University is not accountable for its actions? Can it go Scottfree? What should it pay in terms of compensation for harm done?

7. For all these reasons, I would issue the following