In Brief
The Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by Prof. Narendra Singh Bhandari against the High Court's decision quashing his appointment as Vice-Chancellor of Soban Singh Jeena University. The Court held that the appointment violated Section 10 of the University Act, 2019 and Regulation 7.3.0 of the UGC Regulations, 2018. The appellant lacked the minimum 10 years' required teaching experience as Professor (he had only 8 years 5 months), and his appointment was made without following mandatory procedures: no search committee was constituted, no advertisement issued, and no panel of candidates was prepared. The Court ruled that even for appointing the first Vice-Chancellor, the statutory procedure requiring a Search-cum-Selection Committee and comparative merit assessment is mandatory and cannot be bypassed.
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