COMMON ORDER

The matter is taken up through web hearing.

In all these writ petitions, the petitioners raised common grounds of challenge with identical and common grievances against the action of the 3rd respondent University and therefore, the writ petitions are disposed of by a common order as under.

2. There are two categories of writ petitioners in this batch, one aspiring to be promoted from the post of Assistant Professor to the post of Associate Professor and the other from the post of Associate Professor to the post of Professor. All the writ petitioners are the faculty of the 3rd respondent, the Anna University.

3. Their common grievance in these writ petitions is that with regard to promotion from the post of Assistant Professor to Associate Professor and from the post of Associate Professor to Professor, the University invited applications from the eligible faculty members for consideration of their claim under Career Advancement Scheme hereinafter referred to CAS. According to these petitioners, they had been invited applications vide communication dated 29.06.2017 and 18.07.2017. The petitioners herein, being fully eligible for consideration in terms of the Career Advancement Scheme (CAS) for promotion from the post of Assistant Professor to Associate Professor or from the post of Associate Professor to Professor, as the case may be, applied for consideration of their candidatures on 18.07.2017 through Online. Thereafter, the petitioners were called for presentation and interview, which was scheduled on 02.08.2018 vide communication dated 25.07.2018. The petitioners herein participated in the presentation and interview on the scheduled date. According to the petitioners, after presentation and interview, there was no communication from the University authorities and therefore, representations had been submitted by them in November and December, 2018 and also in February, 2019 as to the outcome of the selection. However, in the meanwhile, the petitioners claim to have come across two Resolutions passed by the University Syndicate that new conditions had been introduced for promotion from the post of Assistant Professor to Associate Professor (Stage 3 to Stage 4) and from the post of Associate Professor to Professor (Stage 4 to Stage 5).

The contents of the Resolutions passed by the Syndicate and adoption of its Minutes dated 03.09.2018 and 09.11.2018 are referred to infra.

4. The petitioners are hereby aggrieved by the introduction of additional qualification as extracted above after completion of selection process for their promotion under the CAS. According to the petitioners, the University cannot introduce additional qualification or eligibility criterion contrary to what was in existence at the time of their participation in the selection and completion of the selection in entirety. In a nutshell, the sum and substance of the objection is Rules of the game cannot be changed after the game was over.

5. On behalf of the petitioners, Mr.Issac Mohanlal and Mr.AR.L.Sundaresan, learned senior counsels appeared, who were assisted by the respective instructing counsels. On behalf of the University Ms.Narmadha Sampath, learned Additional Advocate General appeared, duly instructed by the respective Standing counsels, Mr.L.P.Shanmugasundaram and Mr.M.Vijayakumar.

6. Mr.Issac Mohanlal, learned Senior Counsel appearing for the majority of the writ petitioners, at the outset, would submit that the University is estopped from changing the criteria after the selection was over detrimental to the promotional prospects of the candidates concerned. According to the learned Senior Counsel, the last date for submission of application for the subject selection was 31.07.2017. Thereafter, presentation and interview was conducted on 02.08.2018. Thus, the process of selection was completed by August, 2018. But unfortunately, without taking a final call by declaring the results of the selection, the University subsequently passed a resolutio