Six years on, assistant professor aspirants still await appointments

Patna: Even as the Bihar State University Service Commission (BSUSC) prepares to begin fresh recruitment for vacant assistant professor posts in state universities, thousands of aspirants who applied for positions in history, commerce, botany and zoology are still waiting for appointments nearly six years after the process began.The delay stems from a series of litigations over roster reservation and eligibility-related issues that have stalled recruitment in the four subjects. The candidates had applied against an advertisement issued by the BSUSC in Sept 2020 for 4,638 assistant professor posts across 52 subjects. While appointments in 48 subjects have since been completed, the recruitment of 1,013 teachers in the remaining four subjects remains stuck in legal disputes.According to official sources, the original recruitment notification was challenged on the ground that backlog vacancies had been clubbed with current vacancies, resulting in reservations exceeding the prescribed 50% ceiling.In Febr 2023, the Patna high court declared the selection process unlawful and violative of reservation norms. The court directed the BSUSC to restart the process after separating current vacancies from backlog posts.

The recruitment exercise faced further hurdles when the screening process led to provisional disqualification of several candidates, largely because of mismatches between their undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) subjects. This, too, triggered fresh litigation.Sources said the BSUSC has already submitted its responses on all issues raised before the court, but the final hearing is still awaited.BSUSC chairman Girish Kumar Chaudhary said interviews for history and commerce had already been completed and panels of selected candidates prepared. However, interviews for botany and zoology have not been conducted due to the pending court verdict. “Once the final judgment is delivered, the pending appointments in all four subjects will be cleared,” Chaudhary said.