Court order clouds appointment of IIT directors

Court order clouds appointment of IIT directors

CHARU SUDAN KASTURI

New Delhi, Dec. 24: All current IIT directors were appointed by a process violating at least some of the laws cited by Madras High Court yesterday in setting aside the re-appointment of IIT Madras chief M.S. Ananth. Human resource development ministry documents accessed by The Telegraph reveal that the government never issued public notices inviting applications for the posts of directors, barring in IIT Bombay, to the institutes when they last fell vacant. Article 16 of the Constitution states that “there shall be equality of opportunity for all citizens in matters relating to employment or appointment to any office under the state”. Article 14 refers to equal opportunities to all citizens. The high court cited these articles yesterday while declaring illegal the appointment of Ananth for a second term in 2007. “It is rather shocking that no public notice was given, no advertisement was given in newspapers for the post of director, thus violating Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution,” the court had said. HRD ministry officials today confirmed that the government planned to challenge the high court order against Ananth’s re-appointment. “We are still going through the judgment, but we have no option but to challenge this order as it affects all other directors as well,” an official said. The court, officials complained, failed to give the government adequate opportunity to contest the allegations based on which the IIT director’s appointment was set aside. The ministry may appeal either in Madras High Court, or — more likely — approach the Supreme Court, the sources said. If the high court verdict is upheld in any appeal, it will cast a cloud of uncertainty over the appointment of other directors, too. Section 17 of the IIT Act, 1961, states that “the director of each institute shall be appointed by the council with the prior approval of the Visitor (the President of India).” The council referred to is the IIT council, the highest decision-making body of the IITs, chaired by HRD minister Arjun Singh. But ministry documents establish that for at least three director appointments apart from Ananth’s re-appointment, no meeting of the council was called. The IIT council never met to deliberate on the appointment of the current IIT Kharagpur director. It also did not meet to decide the re-appointment of the current directors of IIT Guwahati and Kanpur, documents show. As reported by The Telegraph yesterday, the IIT council has not met for over two years. It is not clear whether the judge, Justice K. Chandru, expressly ruled against re-appointment of IIT directors in general, as the appellant E. Muralidharan had sought. “In any event, when once the term of office is specified under statute, the same cannot be extended beyond that period,” the judge had said. All directors are members of the IIT council, which under law is required to make fresh appointments to the post of director. Allowing reappointments will imply institutionalising conflict of interest, the appellant argued, as a candidate will be sitting on the panel deciding on his candidature.