Uttarakhand High Court Disposes of Petition on University Recruitment and Regularisation
Dehradun: In a significant ruling, a division bench of the Uttarakhand High Court, comprising Chief Justice Manoj Kumar Gupta and Justice Subhash Upadhyay, disposed of a petition on Friday. The petition was filed by Dr Sakshi Tewari and other assistant professors of Soban Singh Jeena University (SSJU), seeking to balance the university's urgent recruitment needs with the petitioners' pending claims for regularisation.
Background of the Petition and Recruitment Advertisement
The petition emerged in response to a university advertisement dated February 10, 2026, which aimed to fill multiple assistant professor positions across various disciplines, including commerce, sociology, physics, psychology, and geography. The petitioners argued that this recruitment drive could potentially undermine their asserted entitlement to regularisation, as it might fill positions they believed should be reserved for them based on their service history.
Court's Directive on Recruitment and Reserved Posts
After hearing the arguments, the court allowed SSJU to proceed with the recruitment process. However, it issued a crucial directive: eight of the advertised posts must remain unfilled until a committee, constituted under the university's order of December 31, 2025, reviews the petitioners' regularisation cases. This decision aims to safeguard the interests of the petitioners while addressing the university's staffing shortages.
Petitioners' Claims and Service History
The petitioners highlighted that their initial appointments were contractual with Kumaon University (KU) and that they had successfully cleared the relevant recruitment processes before their engagement. Following the formation of SSJU, these KU employees were transferred to the new institution. They claimed continuous service without any interruptions and noted that several senior contractual employees had been regularised by KU's executive council in 2018 under the Daily Wage, Work-Charge, Contract, Fixed-Pay, Part-Time and Ad-hoc Employees Regularisation Rules, 2013.
Legal Precedents and Rule Amendments
During the proceedings, a 2024 High Court decision was cited, which modified the 2013 Rules. This modification allowed only those employees who complete ten years of service after December 2018 to be considered for regularisation, effectively limiting the earlier five-year provision to cases before that date. The petitioners also challenged Clause 4(1) of the 2013 Rules, as amended in 2025, arguing that this amendment violated the spirit of the 2024 judgment, thereby complicating their regularisation prospects.
University Positions and Committee Formation
While Kumaon University's counsel stated that the university had long adopted the Regularisation Rules, SSJU's counsel, CS Rawat, clarified that SSJU had not formally adopted them. The petitioners relied on an office order dated December 31, 2025, which established a six-member committee chaired by Professor PS Bisht. This committee was tasked with considering the regularisation of contractual and ad-hoc employees, providing a framework for addressing their claims.
Court's Observations and Final Ruling
On February 27, the bench observed that filling all advertised posts immediately could complicate the pending regularisation claims. SSJU's counsel acknowledged a shortage of teaching staff and requested permission to recruit while leaving eight positions vacant to protect the petitioners' interests. The court's disposal of the petition reflects a balanced approach, ensuring both the university's operational needs and the employees' rights are addressed, setting a precedent for similar cases in higher education institutions.
