HC notice to Centre, AIIMS on appointment of Prof

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Friday issued notices to the Centre and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on a petition seeking quashing of appointments of more than a hundred Assistant Professors at the institute here.

A Division Bench of Justice A K Sikari and Justice Vipin Sanghi asked them to file their replies by December 17 on the petition which also sought an inquiry into the alleged appointments.

The petition, filed by Sarman Singh, Additional Professor, Department of Laboratory Medicine, AIIMS, through his counsel Varun Sinha, accused the institute management of appointing 164 Assistant Professors in various departments in violation of the institute's recruitment rules.

He alleged that these Assistant Professors were earlier appointed on ad-hoc basis in 1995 and their plea for regularisation was dismissed in 2001.

However, the institute went ahead with a fresh recruitment and appointed all those ad-hoc professors on regular basis in 2003.

Seeking quashing of the entire selection, the petitioner contended, "a number of the appointees did not fulfill the eligibility condition at the time of their ad-hoc appointment".

He also sought direction to the Centre to notify the eligibility criteria for various teaching posts as were decided in the institute's governing body meeting in September 2002