“We are making it very clear, to some extent High Court is wrong”: SC on Kerala HC order to treat Priya Varghese’s Ph.D. period as teaching experience

The Supreme Court (SC) of India was hearing a matter related to the appointment of Priya Varghese as Associate Professor at Kannur University treating the period spent by her to pursue her Ph.D. to be counted as teaching experience. The SC issued notice on the appeal against the order of the Kerala High Court (HC) filed by the University Grants Commission (UGC). A two-judge bench of the SC including Justice KV Vishwanathan and Justice JK Maheshwari heard the matter on July 31. Priya Varghese is the wife of K.K. Ragesh, who is the private secretary to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. During the Court proceedings, the UGC contended that the High Court made a mistake in treating the period spent by Varghese to pursue her Ph.D. to be counted as her teaching experience. Justice Maheshwari orally remarked, “We are making it very clear, to some extent High Court is wrong”. 

The High Court (HC) in its judgment stated that “The prohibition against inclusion of the time taken for acquiring a Ph.D. degree in the computation of teaching/research experience is one that applies to ‘candidates’ by which term is intended a person who is not working as a teacher in any institution at the time of applying for the teaching post in question. ‘Faculty members’, on the other hand, refers to persons who are already working as teachers in an institution  at the time of applying for the teaching post in question, and for them, the period spent on pursuing a research degree simultaneously with teaching assignment and without taking any kind of leave, will count towards teaching experience.”