Colleges will not engage resource persons from next session: UT administration

CHANDIGARH: The UT administration has filed an affidavit of director of education in the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), Chandigarh, saying that colleges will not engage resource persons from next academic session. The matter will come up for hearing on May 2.


The department, however mentioned, “They will endeavour to engage the candidates either on contract by following the legal procedure or by way of regular appointment.”

In August 2011, Rubinderjit Brar, the then director of higher education, UT administration granted permission to the principals of colleges to have a pool of resource persons for teaching to meet the emergent requirements.

In March, 2015 the honorarium was increased. The resource person with UGC NET qualified was to be paid Rs 1,000 per lecture, subject to maximum of Rs 25,000 per month.

An application was filed by four assistant professors — Sukhwinder Singh, a resident of Mohali , Deepak Sharma, a resident of Sector 33 in Chandigarh, Manoj Kumar, a resident of Sector 19B, Chandigarh, and Gurdas Singh, a resident of Sangrur . The application was filed for issuance of directions to the UT administration, education secretary, director of higher education and director of public instructions (colleges) and Post Graduate Government College for Girls in Sector 42, to treat the applicants and grant them the same service condition as other contract assistant professors and declare that the applicants are entitled to the same service condition as other assistant professors on contract basis since the applicants are doing the same work.

It was pointed out that they were taking the same workload, including evaluation of the students. Merely because their nomenclatures is resource person, they are paid a consolidated sum of Rs 25,000 per month which is far less than other contract assistant professors doing the same work.

It was added that the contract assistant professors are being paid salary for 12 months and the same basic pay scale as other regular assistant professors, whereas the applicants are being paid a salary for only seven to eight months.

It was also prayed that tribunal direct the respondents to change the nomenclatures of the applicants as contractual assistant professors instead of identifying them as resource persons.

The application also highlighted how UGC regulations for appointment of teachers does not refer to any other designation except professors, associate professors and assistant professors.

It was also highlighted that the respondents have not issued appointment letters to the applicants and that no such appointment letter has been issued to any of the similarly situated guest faculty/resource persons serving under different government colleges. The applicants claim that non-issuance of appointment letters is unconstitutional and in violation of Article 14 of the Constitution of India.

The administration has argued that criteria for selection of contractual assistant professors is elaborate and followed in consonance with UGC guidelines. On the other hand, resource persons are engaged only by way of cursory interaction at the level of departments.

Regular professors perform other duties as well, whereas resource persons do not. Honorarium is not paid out of salary head, but available college funds. Thus, their claim to equate them with the regular/ contractual assistant professors in not maintainable at all.