Delhi University Political Science professor Rekha Saxena has taken the university to court for allegedly bypassing seniority criteria in the appointment of Head of Department (HOD) of Political Science.
Indian Express The move was criticized from some quarters after it was reported on June 7 that three senior professors, including Saxena, were allegedly sidelined to make Sangeet Kumar Ragi HOD. Former HOD Veena Kukreja died on May 14 from complications after COVID. In the interim, Saxena was made the acting HOD.
However, on June 4, Registrar Vikas Gupta issued a notification to make Ragi HOD.
Saxena has now moved the Delhi High Court against DU along with UGC, Union of India and Raagi along with other defendants in the case. After the first hearing on the matter, Justice Jyoti Singh issued notice to the parties in a written order on 29 October. The next date of hearing is December 20.
Saxena has referred to Ordinance XXIII of DU Rules in his petition. Clause 1 of the Rules states that “the Head of the Department shall be appointed by the Vice-Chancellor, as far as possible, following the principle of rotation”. Clause 2 says, “Notwithstanding anything contained in clause 1, if for any reason it is not possible to appoint a person as the head of the department, who is senior to the person(s) who have already served It shall be open to the Vice-Chancellor of the Department to appoint such person as the Head of the Department as and when any vacancy occurs, if he may be otherwise appointed. could.”
Based on the above, Saxena has said that he was not considered for prominence “illegally and arbitrarily”.
Earlier speaking to The Indian Express, DU registrar Vikas Gupta had said that Ragi was the senior most. “There was a decision in the Election Commission (Executive Council) on how to determine the seniority between a direct recruit and a promoted person. The direct recruits had joined the case on 3 November 2014 and their recommendation was approved by the then VC on 1 November 2014. In the matter of promotion, the recommendation of the selection committee was approved by the then VC in November. 7, 2014. Hence we fix the seniority from the date of approval of VC or EC which makes the direct recruit senior in this case,” he had said.
However, the argument was not found acceptable by the three professors who were allegedly superseded. On June 29, he had written a letter to the then acting VC, asking that either the decision be reversed or the matter should be sent to the Chancellor.
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