Indian High Court Orders Part-Time Lecturers to Accept Unequal Pay

The Allahabad High Court in Uttar Pradesh, India, has directed that 9,000 vacancies in the various affiliated degree colleges in the state be filled within a year.

The court has directed the Director Higher Education to ensure that the management or the principals of the colleges send the requisition to the commission within three months.

Passing this order on a bunch of writ petitions, a Bench, comprising Justice BS Chauhan and Justice Arun Tandon, filed by Anurag Tripathi and others, has directed the Higher Education Services Commission (HESC) to make a regular selection of the lecturers within one year of receiving the requisitions.

While passing the order, the judges also criticized the working style of the HESC, and said it has failed to make regular selections of teachers in the degree colleges.

In its order, the court said part-time lecturers appointed in the degree colleges will continue to function until regularly selected candidates, recommended by the HESC, comes and joins the regular posts.

The court said the part-time lecturers shall be paid on basis of each lecture and they shall not be entitled for regular payment on the basis of equal pay for equal work.

The court disposed of 169 writ petitions, filed by part-time lecturers teaching in the various degree colleges of the state. The petitioner had prayed for their regularisation against the substantive vacant posts of lectures in degree colleges in terms of Section 31-E of the UP HESC Act.