36.Promotion and a case in High court

After  joining as Associate  lecturer in 1969, I  was  promoted as lecturer within an year on the occurrence of a vacancy, but this promotion was cancelled apparently on the implementation of the new service  rules passed  by Board of Governors. On the completion of two years, in 1971, I got my regular  promotion as lecturer. In 1974, a post of Assistant Professor (Instrumentation and Control) fell   vacant as  Sri.P.K.Bharathan went on a foreign assignment in West Indies. As it was exclusively for M.Tech (Instrumentation and Control Systems) there were  only two internal candidates  eligible  for the post, Dr.M.N.Neelakantan  who had returned after his PhD  from Australia and  myself who had returned after M.Tech  from I.I.T.Madras. There were many seniors ahead of me, but as per the qualifications specified for the post in the advertisement, only we two were called for interview from the college and another person from outside. I did not have any hope obviously as Dr.MNN was clearly the person on better qualification and length of service. I was in double minds whether to appear for the interview or not. On the day of the interview, I had a lecture class at 8AM and  as I was  just going to the office  to sign up after the class, Dr.MNN met me and asked whether I am coming for the interview. I said, why should I as you are certain to get it. He said, that is fine, but there are only three candidates called for interview of which the external candidate has not come. If I am also not appearing for the interview, there is a possibility that the post may be  re-advertised as there is only one candidate. So, he requested me to appear for the interview and offered me a treat in return. So, as per his request, I went back to my house, collected my certificates and appeared for the interview. Prof.C.P.Kuriakose, PVC  of Cochin University was the expert  in the panel and  Dr.MNN was  interviewed  for an hour. Then came my turn and I entered the interview room and took my seat after wishing the members of the panel. As soon as I sat down, Principal asked me: “What is the percentage marks you got for your first degree?”.  I said 79.6, then he calculated the percentage from my marks-list on his working sheet and stated “ No, it is wrong”. I was not sure, how to counter him. After 5 years of intensive study, I got my degree and my expectation was to get at least 80%, but I narrowly missed it. Naturally I had calculated my aggregate to two decimals after checking it thoroughly several times and noted it down. Obviously, he wanted me to get into an argument with him, which I politely refused. I simply stated:” Sir, it is correct”. Now he  took up another one,  my M.Tech  Grade Point Average. In the application form, the percentage marks only was  asked for. My GPA  was  7.6/10 and so I wrote 76% with a foot note CGPA  7.6/10. Principal asked me: How can you say  CGPA of 7.6/10  is 76%. Again, it was an obvious attempt to pull me into an argument or show me in poor light in front of the panel. Anyway, I think, others could easily understand his intention and the expert took over from there.  He asked me only questions from my subject Control Systems and I had a satisfactory interview. It was obvious that Dr.MNN was selected, but I recorded this only to show how the head of an institution was trying to pull me down in an interview, probably because I was not in his good books.

Continuing from where I left in an earlier episode, things in REC were moving to a positive direction  when the  new Principal, Dr. S.Unnikrishna Pillai  took over in 1983. He took steps to fill up all vacant posts through advertisement in national dailies. There was a situation once in an engineering department in REC when there was not even an assistant professor in one department to be the head of the department and one workshop superintendent was re-designated as assistant professor and was made head. Such situations were never to come again.

At that time, there  were just two  posts  of professors  in our department , one for  B.Tech  and another M.Tech course. However, three posts of assistant professors in Electrical Engg and one in Electronics   were lying vacant. All these posts of assistant professors were advertised. There were a few persons senior to me in the department, but they did not have a PhD degree. Along with me, three others only had PhD. Even though it was an open competition nation-wide, not many applied from outside and only the internal candidates were competing with one another. In the selection, all of us with PhD were promoted to AP post including my friend Venkataramani  for Electronics. But another person who had joined REC two years before me could not get promoted as he had only an M.Tech degree.  The selection committee obviously   gave consideration for higher qualification and publications along with length of service. The purpose of the all India selection   was obviously to  choose the  best candidate  from among the applicants.

It was true that the condition of the particular senior who could  not get selected  was a little pathetic. He was under treatment for peptic ulcer in the campus and could not go to I.I.Ts or other institutions for doing his PhD  because  of this  condition. He had taken his M Tech from IIT Madras a few years earlier to me. Naturally he was disappointed, but some of his friends told him that if he files a case in the high court  showing that he is the senior and has to be promoted ahead of others, he is likely to win. Poor guy thought this will be possible and he filed a case against the Principal and all of us who were promoted telling that as per seniority, it is his right to be promoted. By denying him promotion, his fundamental right to equal opportunity was denied and so on. High court of Kerala accepted this to file and sent notices to all of us. 

In such cases, it was evident that the court will intervene only if there is anything wrong in the selection procedure by way of advertisement, formation of the selection committee etc. Moreover, we all had received our promotion orders and assumed charge in the higher post and the case was filed only after  we took charge. In a way, even if there was some substance in the case, it was filed too late. Anyway, as it was the first court case against us, some of us were taken aback. As per the advice from the Principal, we also went to Ernakulam and filed an affidavit through an advocate as we were implicated in the case. A few hundred rupees were spent from our pocket also for this purpose.  Some one in the campus had given our colleague the wrong advice to file a case like this knowing fully that it is not going to be of any use. There were always people who wanted to enjoy fighting between others and this was a case like that. Our colleague, being a simpleton, fell into the trap and approached an advocate who had gone to the Supreme court once and gave a neat amount to file this case as violation of fundamental rights. He was naturally disappointed on not getting promotion, but the bystanders exploited his state of mind   in this direction. Unfortunately, this case never came up for hearing for reasons not known to us or the ‘supreme court’ advocate did not get additional fees. All of us who were promoted were confirmed in our posts after two years on completion of probation and the net result was, our colleague lost a few friends by implicating us.

Thus, on October 3^rd 1983, after completing 14 years as lecturer, I was promoted to the post of Assistant professor. In the pretty  bad circumstances REC  were in the late 70s, a decision to travel to Delhi and stay there for 3 years and complete the PhD, proved beneficial. Of course, in  Kerala  government and aided engineering colleges, it  was a routine thing to get promoted as assistant professor for any one with M.Tech degree and 13 years’ service, but in REC it was  not so easy under  the open competition and national selection policy.