Srinagar: The High Court on Wednesday called all the records for court perusal of the selection process for the post of Principal, SKIMS Medical College, Bemina, after a plea was moved before court questioning the recruitment process.

Justice Ali Mohammad Magrey recorded that although the court is conscious of the fact that it has limited scope in interfering with an ongoing selection process which has not yet culminated, but in view of the contentions raised by the petitioners that there has been a violation of recruitment rules as well as of terms and conditions of the advertisement notice on part of the respondents, it has become necessary to call for the records of the selection.

“In the above background, let notice in the main petition as well as in the connected applications be issued to the Respondents, returnable on or before the next date of hearing,” Justice Magrey said.

Meanwhile, the court directed the Administrative Secretary of the Health and Medical Education Department and Director SKIMS to submit the relevant selection records before the court on the next date of hearing so fixed.

“It is further provided that the selection process in question may go ahead, but shall not be finalised until further orders from the court,” the judge ordered.

Earlier, the petitioners had claimed to have applied for the post of Principal, SKIMS Medical College, Bemina, pursuant to Advertisement Notice No. 01 of 2021 dated 7th of January, 2021.

The grievance of the petitioners was that the selection process for the post was being carried out in violation of the recruitment rules as well as against the mandate of Clauses (b) and (c) prescribed in the Advertisement Notice.

MY Bhat, the counsel representing the petitioners, submitted before court that the selection committee had not assessed the credentials of all the competing candidates on the basis of criteria and that, without such assessment, they had called all the nine competing candidates for interview instead of restricting the number of candidates to the ratio of 1:5.

It was further submitted that the selection committee was supposed to prepare a panel of three candidates on the basis of merit and place the same before the Chairman, Governing Body, SKIMS, in the order of merit, but instead of doing so, they had not prepared the panel.

NUSRAT SIDIQ