Delhi HC dismisses plea filed by NLU Delhi Professor challenging Vice-Chancellor appointment process

The Delhi High Court today dismissed a petition challenging the process of appointment of the Vice-Chancellor of National Law University, Delhi. (Dr Prasannanshu v. Selection Committee for VC NLUD)..The Single Judge Bench of Justice Jyoti Singh dismissed the petition filed by NLU Delhi faculty member Dr Prasannanshu..The petitioner had joined NLU Delhi in 2009 as an Associate Professor and was promoted to Professor in July 2015..Certain that he fulfilled all conditions of eligibility contained in the advertisement calling for applications for the post of Vice-Chancellor, the petitioner applied for the same..It was his grievance that in spite of fulfilling the eligibility requirements and having a glorious academic record, he was not called for the interview round that was conducted in February 2020. No reason was provided for the same..The petitioner argued that the Selection Committee's decision of not calling him for the interview round was grossly illegal, arbitrary, unreasonable and not germane to the principle of intelligible differentia..Opposing the petition, NLU Delhi had contended that the petitioner did not meet the eligibility criteria as defined in the advertisement calling for applications for the post of Vice-Chancellor. It was also contended that an applicant had no vested right to be called for an interview round. .Relying on the law laid down by the Supreme Court, the Court held that since selection committees are carefully constituted and are manned by experts in the field, their assessments have to be invariably respected and trusted unless they are actuated and bristle with malice or arbitrariness. .It reiterated that it was not within the domain of the Courts to exercise judicial review over the merits of a selection process unless there were proven allegations of malafide or violation of statutory rules..The Court thus opined, ...the law so enunciated shall equally apply to the threshold stage of shortlisting the candidates for the purpose of interview/interaction. Shortlisting on the basis of eligibility and other objective criteria requires expertise and thus once the exercise is undertaken by the selection committee, principle of judicial restraint must be applied..The Court noted that in the present case, neither were there any allegation of malafide or bias against any member of the Selection Committee nor a challenge to any Rule or Regulation. .The Petitioner’s grievance was limited to not inviting him for the interactive session and an objection was raised nearly 4 months after the process of interaction was concluded it added. .The Court further held that in the absence of a any legal mandate, an applicant had no vested right or fundamental right to be called for an interview/interaction..Settled law is that in any selection, by interview, all applicants may not be interviewed and a conscious decision of a Committee to shortlist and not call a few, does not amount to nonconsideration of the applications of those not called, if the elimination is by a due process. Thus the law as developed by judicial pronouncements does not vest a right to be called for interview even when a candidate fulfills the eligibility criteria.Delhi High Court said. .While selecting a candidate, a Selection Committee is not required to record reasons for preferring one candidate to the other or non-selection of a candidate and much less while shortlisting for interaction, the Court observed. .In view of the above, the Court held that there were no reasons to interfere with the decision of the Selection Committee..Senior Advocate Rajiv Bansal with Advocate Karan Suneja appeared for the petitioner..NLU Delhi was represented by Advocates Rajshekhar Rao, Sanjay Vashishtha, SD Sharma, Anandh Venkataramani, Areeb Amanullah..Read the Judgment: