Members of the ‘1158 Assistant Professors and Librarians Front, Punjab’ staged a protest march in SAS Nagar (Mohali) today, demanding the completion of the recruitment process for 1158 posts of assistant professors and librarians in government colleges. Carrying placards demanding that the government complete the entire recruitment process, the selected Assistant Professors staged a protest asserting that their primary demand was the appointment of the remaining candidates to government colleges to ensure that all the 1158 posts were filled.
Gurlal Mann, himself a selected candidate for Assistant Professor-Punjabi and who is spearheading the stir said that the protest will continue until all the selected candidates are appointed and the recruitment process is completed. He alleged that despite a favourable ruling from Punjab and Haryana High Court allowing the 1,158 recruitments to proceed, the government had delayed the appointments for a long. The protesters argued that the issue is about recruitment and the survival of government colleges, which have not had regular professor appointments for 25 years.
It may be recalled that in a major relief, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had allowed the recruitment of 1,158 assistant professors and librarians in Punjab while overturning a single bench ruling that had earlier rejected this recruitment of 2021. The Punjab government had challenged this decision in a double bench. During the hearing, the counsel appearing on behalf of the Punjab government had demanded allotment of stations to professors selected during the recruitment of 1,158 assistant professors/librarians.
