AICTE rules can’t override state teacher recruitment norms: Supreme Court

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has said AICTE regulations 2012 are meant for career advancement and cannot be employed to override the state rules on recruitment of teachers in technical institutions.

Stressing that the law does not permit a regulation crafted as a ladder to be used as a gate, a bench of Justices P S Narasimha and Alok Aradhe said the AICTE regulations and state rules operated in different field, therefore, there was no question of one superseding the other.

In a judgment on January 19, 2025, Justice Aradhe for the bench emphasised that the AICTE regulations are designed to advance a career, not to initiate one at a particular rung.

"To apply AICTE regulations to a candidate participating in recruitment for the post of professors in the engineering colleges in the state conducted by the Commission (public service) under state rules framed by the state, would be to stretch the regulations beyond its text, context, and purpose," the bench said.

The person to whom the regulations apply must already be

an incumbent or a newly appointed Assistant Professor/Associate

Professor or Professor. The regulations are not recruitment rules but are promotion and progression rules, the court noted.

Setting aside the Gujarat High Court's division bench judgment of August 20, 2025, the bench emphasised that it is a settled principle that a candidate having participated in the process of selection, without protest, cannot challenge the rules of the game after being declared unsuccessful.

Having failed in her attempt to be appointed as professor (plastic engineering) in government college, the respondent Gnaneshwari Dushyantkumar Shah approached the High Court where the single bench dismissed her plea.

The division bench, on her appeal, invalidated the 2015 recruitment, holding that the interview-based process for selection was in violation of the AICTE regulations, which would apply to even direct recruitment.

Holding the reliance on the AICTE regulations as misconceived, the bench pointed out, the entire scheme of the regulations proceeded on one foundational basis that the person to whom those apply must already be an incumbent or a newly appointed Assistant Professor/Associate Professor or Professor.

"The regulations are not recruitment rules but are promotion and progression rules," the bench said.

The court held the HC's division bench committed an error in assuming that the AICTE regulations override the state recruitment rules in the matter of initial appointment.

"The Act does not empower the AICTE, to abolish the state rules for recruitment in government colleges, but empowers it to ensure standard of education and service conditions, particularly for career progression," the bench said.

The court, however, emphasised, there can be no quarrel with the proposition that the AICTE, as apex statutory authority in the field of technical education, lays down uniform norms and standards and that its regulations, particularly those concerning qualifications, academic standards and quality control, ordinarily prevail over inconsistent State prescriptions, so as to ensure national coherence and excellence in technical education.

Inspite of noting substantial research credentials, international publications and technical expertise on the part of the candidate, the bench said, "Yet, the fact remains that the courts do not make appointments. A recruitment concluded in 2015 cannot be reopened in 2025, on the basis of the regulations that never applied to it."