Tribunal directs Chandigarh Admn to appoint regular principal of architecture college

Tribune News Service

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Chandigarh, April 19

The Chandigarh Bench of Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) has directed the UT Administration to appoint a regular principal for the Chandigarh College of Architecture after finalising and notifying the recruitment rules for the post. The Bench quashed the order of the Administration vide which the charge of principal was assigned to UT Chief Architect Kapil Setia in addition to his own duties on an interim basis while withdrawing the same from the applicant.

The Bench has passed the order on an application filed by Prof Sangeeta Bagga two years ago through counsel Rohit Seth.

Bagga moved the tribunal after additional charge of the college principal given to her was withdrawn and assigned to Setia on July 19, 2022. The tribunal had stayed the operation of the order on July 22, 2022, while issuing a notice to the Chandigarh Administration on her plea. The stay had continued since then.

In the application, Bagga had prayed for quashing the UT order while terming it as illegal and arbitrary. She also sought issuance of directions to allow her to continue to work as the principal till a regular appointment was made, being the senior-most professor with PhD and fully qualified and eligible to hold the post. She further sought directions to the respondents to fill the post on a permanent basis in a time-bound manner.

Appearing on Bagga’s behalf, Seth contended that the applicant was given the additional charge of the principal on September 21, 2017, being senior-most faculty member of the college. He alleged that vague and frivolous complaints were made against her in the past by vested interests. He claimed that all complaints later turned out to be false.

Seth claimed that she was also the only professor holding mandatory PhD qualification. Therefore, she was given the additional charge of the principal by the Administration.

The counsel argued that the Chief Architect, UT, was not qualified to hold the post of principal. He said the action of the Administration for giving the additional charge of the college principal to the Chief Architect amounted to reviewing the earlier orders, vide which the charge was given to the applicant. Her sudden removal after five years in the manner it had been done was punitive, more so as the applicant was left with 12 years of service as on date.

The bench in the order said, “In the circumstance discussed above, we direct the UT Administration to finalise and notify the recruitment rules and complete the process for recruitment and appointment of a regular principal. In the meantime, till the regular appointment is made, present arrangement shall continue. The applicant shall continue to hold the additional charge, being the senior-most professor with PHD, subject to her work and conduct till the regular arrangement is made. We find no reasons to interfere in the present arrangement and A1 is hereby quashed and OA is partly allowed.”

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