The Gujarat High Court (Ahmedabad Bench) has ruled that past teaching experience of regularly appointed teachers must be counted under Regulation 10(b) of the UGC Regulations, 2018 if they possessed the required qualifications, were selected through the prescribed process, and held an equivalent post. Essentially, the Court said that candidates regularly appointed to equivalent teaching posts in recognized self-financed institutions cannot be denied past experience marks merely because they were paid fixed salary instead of UGC pay scale salary.
The Court clarified that under Regulation 10 of the UGC Regulations, 2018, past teaching experience of a candidate who was regularly appointed to an equivalent teaching post, possessed the prescribed qualifications, and was selected through the proper procedure, cannot be denied merely because the candidate was paid fixed salary instead of the UGC pay scale. For regular appointments, Regulation 10(b) governs the issue, and the salary benchmark contained in Regulation 10(f)(iii) applies only to ad hoc, temporary or contractual service and cannot be read into Regulation 10(b).
A Single Judge Bench of Justice Niral R. Mehta said the central issue was whether Regulation 10 of the UGC Regulations, 2018 allows a university to deny counting of past teaching experience of a candidate who was regularly appointed to an equivalent teaching post in a recognized private self-financed institution, only because that candidate was paid fixed salary instead of the prescribed UGC pay scale. The Court closely examined Regulation 10 and held that it is a beneficial provision with an inclusive object. According to the Court, the purpose of the regulation is to ensure that genuine teaching and research experience is not excluded merely because it was gained outside a government institution or under a different management. The regulation seeks to recognize past academic experience as long as the expressly stated conditions are fulfilled.
The Court observed that Regulation 10 creates two separate classes of service for counting past experience: first, previous regular service; and second, previous ad hoc, temporary or contractual service. For both categories, the starting requirement is that the person must have held a post for which the qualifications were not lower than those prescribed by the UGC. But beyond that, the conditions differ depending on the nature of appointment. For regular appointees, the Court held that Regulation 10(b) focuses on the nature and status of the post, not the actual salary drawn. If the candidate had UGC-prescribed qualifications, was appointed through the prescribed selection procedure, and held a post equivalent in grade or corresponding pre-revised scale, the service should be counted. The Court specifically noted that Regulation 10(b) does not expressly require that the candidate must actually have drawn UGC pay scale salary.
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By contrast, the Court observed that the salary condition appears specifically in Regulation 10(f)(iii), which deals only with ad hoc, temporary or contractual service. In that category alone, the regulation requires that the person must have been drawing gross emoluments not less than the salary of a regularly appointed Assistant Professor, Associate Professor or Professor. The Court said this financial benchmark was consciously inserted only for non-regular appointments.
The Court therefore held that the university had wrongly imported the salary condition from Regulation 10(f)(iii) into Regulation 10(b). It said such an interpretation is impermissible because it adds a requirement to regular appointments that the regulation itself does not impose. Once a person is a regular appointee with proper qualifications, proper selection and an equivalent post, past experience cannot ordinarily be rejected only because the institution paid fixed salary. Applying this interpretation to the facts, the Court noted that the petitioner had the required UGC qualifications, had been appointed on a regular basis after due selection, and both his appointments had been approved by the statutory university. The Court said his case clearly fell under Regulation 10(b), and therefore his claim could not be rejected by borrowing the conditions applicable only to ad hoc, temporary or contractual appointees under Regulation 10(f)(iii).
The Court also made an important fairness observation. It said that if the management of the private self-financed institution failed to pay the UGC-prescribed salary despite the petitioner’s entitlement, that default was attributable to the employer and could not be used against the petitioner. Otherwise, the petitioner would suffer double prejudice: first by being denied proper salary, and second by losing the value of the service he had actually rendered.
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Briefly, the petitions arose from a recruitment dispute to the post of Assistant Professor and, specifically, the refusal of the university to award marks for the candidates past teaching experience during scrutiny of their applications. The lead petitioner had strong academic qualifications, including B.A., M.A., B.Ed., M.Ed., another M.A. in Education, and a Ph.D. He was appointed as an Assistant Professor in 2016 in a self-financed B.Ed. college affiliated with Saurashtra University, and his appointment was first conditionally approved and later finally approved by the university as a full-time Assistant Professor.
Later, in July 2025, the petitioner was selected and appointed as Principal of the same college on a permanent basis after following the recruitment process prescribed under NCTE and UGC regulations. Saurashtra University also approved his appointment as Principal in August 2025 after being satisfied that it complied with the prevailing regulations. The respondent university thereafter issued an advertisement dated 27 December 2025 inviting applications for Assistant Professor posts in Education. The petitioner applied on 12 January 2026 under the General category and submitted all required documents. On 23 May 2026, the university’s Scrutiny Committee informed him of the marks awarded, and he found that no marks had been given for his past teaching experience.
The university denied those marks on the ground that the petitioner was allegedly not drawing salary in accordance with UGC Regulations, 2018, especially Regulation 10. The petitioner challenged this action under Article 226 of the Constitution, arguing that his regular service as Assistant Professor and Principal in a recognized self-financed institution could not be ignored merely because he had been paid fixed salary instead of UGC scale salary. The university defended its decision by arguing that past teaching experience can be counted only if the candidate was in regular service, possessed the prescribed qualifications, was appointed through due process, and was drawing salary in the equivalent grade or pay scale. According to the university, since the petitioners were drawing fixed salary and not the prescribed scale, they did not satisfy Regulation 10 and their experience was rightly excluded.
