By the Court.—Heard Sri S. P. Gupta, Senior Advocate assisted by Sri Shivam Agarwal on behalf of petitioner. Sri K. C. Kaushik, Additional Solicitor General on behalf of Union of India as well as Indian Institute of Information & Technology, Allahabad (hereinafter referred to as ‘IIIT-A’).

2. Petitioner before this Court seeks quashing of the entire process of selection, initiated by Ministry of Human Resources Development, Union of India, for the post of Director, IIIT-A, interview whereof was scheduled on 23.12.2013. A mandamus has been prayed for, directing the Hon’ble Chancellor of IIIT-A to hold selections for the post of Director and for restraining the Search-cum-Selection Committee constituted by Union of India from holding any interview for the post of Director, and lastly, in the alternative for a mandamus commanding the authority concerned to call the petitioner for interview also for the post of Director, IIIT-A.

3. Facts in short leading to present writ petition are as follows:

IIIT-A is a Deemed University within the meaning of an international repute, managed and administrated by a society in the name and style of India Institute of Information & Technology, Allahabad Society. It is duly registered under the Societies Registration Act. The Society is run and managed in accordance with the Memorandum of Association and Rules (hereinafter referred to as the Rules). The Institute has a post of Director. The petitioner before this Court was selected and appointed as Director for the first time on 21.1.2002. The term of the Director was initially 3 years which was to expire on 22.1.2005. His term was extended by a period of 2 years. The extended term would expire in 2007. Process of selection by direct recruitment for the post of Director was, therefore, initiated in the year 2006. The petitioner applied and was again selected for appointment as Director on 21.1.2007. The term of appointment of the Director for the second term was 5 years, which expired on 6.1.2012.

4. The process of selection of appointment on the post of Director was, therefore, initiated afresh by publishing an advertisement on 3rd November, 2011. The eligibility condition as mentioned in the advertisement have been brought on record as Annexure 4 to the present writ petition. The petitioner applied in pursuance to the said advertisement. The date of interview had been fixed by the Search-cum-Selection Committee in terms of advertisement as 23.12.2013. No call letter was issued in favour of the petitioner. The petitioner was informed of the resolution of the Search-cum-Selection Committee dated 23.3.2013 whereunder he had not been short listed for the purpose of interview. Therefore, he made a representation for being called for interview. The Principal Secretary of the Board of Management of IIIT-A wrote a letter to the Secretary, Ministry of Human Resources Development, Department of Higher Education, New Delhi for appropriate action being taken and selection proceedings being stopped immediately. The Government did not respond to the same.

5. The Search-cum-Selection Committee in its meeting held on 3rd April 2013 after interaction with the short listed candidates recorded that none has been found suitable for the post. However, a note was added to the effect that the process of selection may continue by seeking names through nomination.

6. This according to the petitioner is bad, inasmuch as, once the Search-cum-Selection Committee on 3rd April, 2013 found that none was suitable for the post of Director, it became functus officio. It could not have proceeded with the selections any further. The respondents were under legal obligation to publish a fresh advertisement and to proceed with the selections thereafter. On the contrary, the Search-cum-Selection Committee after considering the names received through nomination on 22.4.2013, invited six candidates for interaction on 23.12.2013. It is at this stage the present writ petition has b