Staff Reporter :
A writ petition was filed on Thursday with the High Court seeking stay on the operation of the recruitment circular that relates to appointment of six lecturers (temporary) in the Department of Philosophy at Jahangirnagar University.
Four teachers of the department, Professor Dr Mohammad Kamrul Ahsan, Professor Dr ASM Anwarullah Bhuiyan, Professor Md Zakir Hossain and Assistant Professor Abdus Satter, filed the petition through their lawyer Dr Syeda Nasrin.
In the petition they also prayed to the court to issue a ruling upon the respondents to show cause as to why the recruitment circular published on February 11 this year that relates to appointment of Six lecturers (temporary) in the Department of Philosophy shall not be declared without lawful authority.
Education secretary, UGC chairman and vice-chancellor, registrar,
Dean of the Arts and Humanities faculty and Chairman of the Department of Philosophy of the Jahangirnagar University have been made respondents in the petition.
Dr Nasrin said, the court will hear the petition soon in due course.
In the petition it was said that the circular was issued when the country was not under lockdown situation. And now, suddenly after four months on June 7, 2021 the applicants received a mere text to attend viva voce on June 12 virtually for their appointment. The entire Department, the petitioners and Academic Committee had no idea about it.
When the entire country is still under lockdown for complying with the Government’s order, the Jahangirnagar University authority is doing the opposite. Classes are yet to open, whereas the University is in hurry to appoint the teachers, which is absolutely absurd, malafide and arbitrary, also read the petition.
The tenure of the current chairman of the department is going to expire this August, 2021. It is asserted that, he wants to get this appointment process completed during his chairmanship in order to uphold his authority as well as syndication amongst a vested group in total derogation of the fact that the department does not need any recruitment right now.
The viva voce is to be taken virtually which is totally unwanted, malafide and arbitrary in nature. The post of Lecturer in a university is very vital one. It needs to be judged reasonably and prudently. There is no other requirement or way to judge a teacher for the appointment except this viva and thereby this would be the ultimate opportunity for the applicants. Viva process being the last scope to be examined minutely must be done without having any iota of discretion. Holding viva virtually will frustrate the entire process of examination.
