The Delhi University (DU) is likely to begin a recruitment drive from next month to fill almost 5,000 posts of teaching staff which have been lying vacant for over a decade. According to sources, the process of recruitment will start from February first week as a committee formed by Yogesh Kumar Tyagi, DU Vice-Chancellor (V-C), to look after recruitments has come up with a detailed blueprint in this regard.
“The recruitment process will kick off from February first week as the DU administration has already initiated the process. The University will publish a centralised form next month which has to be filled by aspirants willing to work as teaching staff in the colleges of the University,” a source said. “The appointment procedure will be held in two phases—aspirants will be called for the posts of principals in colleges in the first phase and in the second phase, posts for assistant professors will be filled,” sources added.
The speedy recruitment decision was taken under pressure of a High Court order passed in September 2016, in which the court had asked the Delhi University to go ahead with recruitment of assistant professors while ensuring compliance with the Union Government’s reservation policy and guidelines of the University Grants Commission. The High Court had also directed the university to complete the recruitment process by the end of May 2017.
Sources said the university is going to file an assessment report before the court on 30 January. While hearing a writ petition moved by the SC/ST/OBC Teachers’ Forum of the University, a division bench comprising Justice B.D. Ahmed and Justice Siddharth Mridul had given the direction for initiating the staffing process.
The Delhi University had in July last year withdrawn its earlier affidavit filed in the High Court, in which it had claimed that since it was an autonomous body, it was not obliged to follow the decisions of the Centre and the UGC on teachers’ appointment. But the court said: “If reservation norms were not complied with or the issues raised by the petitioner were not addressed, the appointment process would come under judicial scrutiny.”
Abha Dev Habib, a member of Executive Council, said: “Among the several issues which we have been raising with the government and the university administration, the recruitment of teaching staff was the primary one. DU is bound to comply with the HC direction and I hope till the end of May, the recruitment process will be completed.”