Photo Source: Babushahi Bureau
Supreme Court quashes over 1,000 Assistant Professor appointments in Punjab over UGC norm violations; Order Copy Attached
Babushahi Bureau
New Delhi, July 16, 2025: In a significant judgment delivered on July 14, the Supreme Court annulled the Punjab Government’s October 2021 appointments of 1,091 assistant professors and 67 librarians, citing blatant violations of University Grants Commission (UGC) regulations.
The apex court emphasized that once a State adopts UGC norms, they become binding and must be strictly followed.
A bench comprising Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice K. Vinod Chandran overturned a previous decision by a division bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which had reinstated the recruitment process after it was initially struck down by a single judge.
Click the link to read order copy:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YqrIG6RSNrgc6mznROdyFSdn3P9b8IZi/view?usp=sharing
The Court pointed to serious procedural irregularities, criticizing the selection process as arbitrary and politically motivated, especially since it was carried out just months before the 2022 Punjab Assembly elections.
Among the major concerns was the exclusion of the State Public Service Commission and the replacement of standard UGC-mandated evaluation criteria with a simple multiple-choice test—something the Court noted was “unheard of” for selecting university-level teaching staff.
Justice Dhulia, who authored the ruling, explained the legal reasoning by highlighting the supremacy of Entry 66 of List I (Union List) in the Constitution’s Seventh Schedule, which pertains to higher education.
He noted that while states can legislate on education under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List, those laws are subordinate to those made under the Union List.As such, the UGC regulations, being a product of central legislation, override any conflicting state-level provisions.