HC allows engineering college to terminate service of faculty due to closure of course

The Karnataka High Court has held that faculty members of an engineering college cannot claim the right to remain in service till retirement age after the department is validly closed and posts are abolished without the benefit in which they work.

A division bench comprising Justice DK Singh and Justice Tara Vitasta Ganju made these observations while allowing the appeal filed by Malnad Engineering College, Hassan.

However, the board directed the university to pay ₹ 40 lakh as financial aid to the faculty members, stating that they had worked in the university for a long time and lost their jobs before reaching retirement age due to the closure of the department.

Single judge decision

The college had challenged a single judge’s December 2023 order that despite the closure of the Department of Automobile Engineering, the services of the two professors should be continued until they reach the age of 65, the retirement age, as per the regulations of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).

The single judge had given the verdict in favor of MK Ravishankar and KP Ravikumar, who have been professors in the department since 1997 and 2005 respectively.

The board noted that the university decided to close the department due to the decrease in the number of students choosing the automobile engineering course. Both Visvesvaraya University of Technology and AICTE had no objection to the university administration’s decision to close the department. The board stated that the university has also closed the Industrial and Production Engineering department as of the 2021-22 academic session.

When the self-financing department was closed, the petitioner-professors had no right to continue service as the post to which they were appointed was abolished, the board stated that they would have continued to serve until retirement had the department not been closed.