UGC shortlisting rules for Assistant Professor posts must count eligible past teaching service and cannot be rewritten by reading down.

Regulation 10 of the UGC 2018 framework was held relevant to shortlisting for Assistant Professor appointments under Regulation 4.1 and Table 3A, because the scheme permits counting past teaching or post-doctoral service where the stipulated conditions are met. The Supreme Court rejected the High Court's approach of treating that reference as surplusage and declined to read down Regulation 10(f)(iii), holding that reading down cannot be used to avoid an unestablished constitutional or statutory defect. It also held that a writ court cannot sustain relief on an unpleaded perceived anomaly, including the post-doctoral experience point, when that issue was not part of the case before it.

---

---

Issues: (i) whether Regulation 10 of the University Grants Commission (Minimum Qualifications for Appointment of Teachers and other Academic Staff in Universities and Colleges and other Measures for the Maintenance of Standards in Higher Education) Regulations, 2018 could be excluded from the shortlisting process for appointment to the post of Assistant Professor under Regulation 4.1 and Table 3A; (ii) whether Regulation 10(f)(iii) could be read down on the premise that contractual teaching experience was irrelevant or constitutionally suspect; (iii) whether the High Court could sustain its view on the basis of a perceived anomaly regarding post-doctoral experience in the absence of pleadings.

Issue (i): whether Regulation 10 could be excluded from the shortlisting process for appointment to the post of Assistant Professor under Regulation 4.1 and Table 3A.

Analysis: Regulation 4.1 expressly provides that academic score under Table 3A is to be used for shortlisting candidates for interview, while Regulation 10 lays down the conditions under which past service is to be counted for direct recruitment and promotion. The Court held that Regulation 10 is not inapplicable merely because appointment to Assistant Professor is an entry-level post. Where the recruitment rules themselves award marks for teaching or post-doctoral experience, candidates satisfying the conditions in Regulation 10 are entitled to have such service counted. The High Court's approach of treating the reference to past service as surplusage amounted to deleting operative words from the regulatory scheme.

Conclusion: The exclusion of Regulation 10 from the shortlisting exercise for Assistant Professor was rejected, and the interpretation adopted by the High Court was held unsustainable.

Issue (ii): whether Regulation 10(f)(iii) could be read down on the premise that contractual teaching experience was irrelevant or constitutionally suspect.

Analysis: Reading down is a limited interpretive tool available to preserve a provision from invalidity where a genuine constitutional or statutory vice is shown or where the language is ambiguous and capable of a constitutional construction. The Court held that the High Court neither found Regulation 10(f)(iii) unconstitutional nor identified any defect in legislative competence, excessive delegation, or repugnancy with the parent Act. Instead, it read the provision down to avoid examining the challenge, which was impermissible. The Court further held that the plain text of Regulation 10, read with Tables 3A and 3B, permits counting of past teaching service subject to the stipulated conditions, and that such a construction is neither arbitrary nor contrary to the regulatory scheme.

Conclusion: Regulation 10(f)(iii) could not be read down in the manner adopted by the High Court, and the challenge to the provision failed.

Issue (iii): whether the High Court could sustain its view on the basis of a perceived anomaly regarding post-doctoral experience in the absence of pleadings.

Analysis: A writ court deciding on affidavits must remain confined to the pleaded case and the material placed on record. The Court held that the alleged anomaly concerning post-doctoral experience was not raised in the pleadings and was not a basis on which the parties had joined issue. In such a situation, the High Court could not create a third case or decide the matter on conjecture, particularly when no clarification had been sought from the UGC or the recruiting bodies.

Conclusion: The reliance on an unpleaded perceived anomaly was impermissible and could not support the impugned judgment.

Final Conclusion: The regulatory framework for shortlisting candidates for Assistant Professor appointments was upheld as applied by the recruiting bodies, and the High Court's interference by way of reading down was set aside.

Ratio Decidendi: A court cannot rewrite a clear statutory or regulatory text under the guise of reading down, and in writ jurisdiction it cannot grant or sustain relief on an unpleaded basis; shortlisting norms that rationally give effect to the regulatory scheme are permissible if they do not violate the parent enactment or the Constitution.

---