Allahabad HC order gives hope to PhD holders

COIMBATORE: There is fresh hope for thousands of PhD qualified aspiring college and university teachers and serving staff who have not cleared the tough National Eligibility Test (NET).In a recent verdict, the Allahabad High Court has allowed two candidates, who had obtained a PhD degree prior to December 31, 2009 to apply for assistant professor’s jobs at the University of Allahabad.The court had on April 6 struck down a 2010 policy decision of the Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry mandating a pass in NET as an essential eligibility for applying for an assistant professor’s job.Before the HRD Ministry notified the NET mandate to raise the eligibility bar for the teaching profession as recommended by the Mungekar Committee, the University Grants Commission (UGC) had exempted candidates who had acquired a PhD degree prior to December 2009 from appearing in the NET.A UGC committee headed by former University of Madras Vice-chancellor S P Thyagarajan had drawn up a set of 11 guidelines to ascertain the quality of the PhD obtained by these candidates. The committee had recommended that the PhD qualification of a candidate can be accepted if he/she fulfilled at least six of the 11 criteria. However, the HRD Ministry had instructed the UGC not to grant any such exemption and insisted that only NET-qualified persons be made eligible for a teaching job.Thousands of candidates who had possessed MPhil and granted exemption from the NET previously, were also affected by the Ministry’s notification. MPhil and PhD qualified persons had  unsuccessfully challenged the decision in various judicial forums including the Madras High Court. At this stage, the Allahabad High Court has struck down the rule on a petition from two aspirants who were awarded PhD degrees in 2009 and 2003 respectively prior to enforcement of the UGC 3rd Amendment, which came into force on December 31, 2009. “They are eligible, even if they are not NET/SLET/SET qualified, if they have been awarded PhD degree with any six conditions of 11 recommended by the UGC prior to December 31, 2009,” a bench comprising Justices Sunil Ambwani and Manoj Misra has held. The judges observed that when it comes to laying down minimum qualifications for appointment of teachers the Central government does not possess any supervisory powers to annul the resolutions of UGC.