BATHINDA: Close to a month after a double bench of Supreme Court quashed the recruitment of 1158 assistant professors and librarians in Punjab, Punjab government has moved the Supreme Court seeking modification of its July 14, 2025, orders and has prayed that 1158 Assistant Professors and Librarians be allowed to continue for the time being in the interest of students in government colleges. The state government is also exploring all other possible legal remedies, stated Punjab’ Higher Education Minister Harjot Singh Bains in a social media post on Monday. The assistant professors and librarians had been mounting pressure on the state government to file a review petition in the apex court against its order setting aside the high court order which had upheld their recruitment. The SC bench comprising Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and K Vinod Chandran while setting aside the order by double bench of Punjab and Haryana high court in its 56 pages order delivered on July 14, 2025, observed that the advertisement inviting applications for the posts was issued on October 19, 2021. On the same day, the department of higher education wrote to Punjab Public Service Commission to return its requisition sent to the Commission for these posts. The Commission, however, on November 16, 2021, wrote to the department disagreeing with the idea of taking the posts out of the purview of the Commission since the action as required at the end of the government was not followed. Without any further action, the examinations were conducted between November 20-22, 2022. It was after the selection and appointments were made that retrospectively on March 26, 2022, an amendment was made taking out these posts out of the purview of the Commission. The learned Single Judge has rightly observed that the retrospective amendment to the 1955 Regulations, which was made much after the conclusion of the recruitment process, was nothing but a response to the Writ Petitions which had been filed by the appellants, the SC had observed. Article 320(3)(a) of the Constitution, inter alia, states that the State Public Service Commission shall be consulted on all matters relating to methods of recruitment to civil services and for civil posts. The court ordered to set aside the order of September 23, 2024, passed by the Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court and quashed the entire recruitment and directed the State to initiate the recruitment process as per the 2018 UGC Regulations. Earlier a double bench of Punjab and Haryana high court on September 23, 2024, had reversed the order by single bench and allowed the recruitment to continue and professors had got appointment letters.
