UP govt can appoint professors sans reservations: SC

The Supreme Court on Wednesday approved of the Uttar Pradesh government's decision of 2015 to make an appointment to post of professors in 12 medical colleges in the state, without applying reservations for any of the categories of the Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and the Other Backward Class.

A bench of Justice L Nageswara Rao and Hemant Gupta saw nothing wrong in increasing the maximum age of candidates from 45 to 65 years as the state government contended no direct recruitment to the posts of professors in Government Medical Colleges could be made for past 15 years prior to 2015 since eligible and competent persons were not coming forward.

The top court asked the state government to appoint professors in Government Medical Colleges soon, saying those were being "manned for 15 years prior to 2015 by unqualified persons indicating the distressing state of affairs of medical education in the State of Uttar Pradesh".

“To remedy a grave situation, the state has taken a decision to make appointments by increasing the maximum age limit. The sincere attempt made by the state to have qualified doctors holding the posts of professors has not yielded any results due to the pendency of cases which are filed
challenging the advertisement issued in 2015,” the bench said.

The court dismissed a civil appeal filed by Professor Rajendra Chaudhary and others against the Allahabad High Court's judgement, which upheld the government's decision.

It said that relaxation of the upper age limit was applicable only to those departments where 25% or more posts were vacant as per the Medical Council of India regulations.

With regard to reservations, the court referred to the service rules which stated, for appointment by direct recruitment, the quota can be implemented only in cases where there are more than four posts available in each department.

“We are satisfied that no error has been committed by the respondents in not providing reservations for appointment by direct recruitment to the post of professor in Government Medical Colleges. The unit of appointment is specialty/ department and the number of posts available in each specialty/ department is less than five,” the court said.