said college vide order dated 06.01.2012 is de hors the rules. He contended that the respondent no. 5 is holding a civil post in a provincialised college and, hence, the appellants herein being public-spirited citizens and residents of the district of Barpeta, are entitled to question the appointment of an unqualified person on the post of Principal and in seeking a writ of quo warranto to remove him from the post. His fervent contention was that the respondent no. 5, who was initially appointed as a lecturer in G.L. Choudhury College on 17.04.1993, took study leave under Faculty Induction Programme (FIP) of UGC for pursuing Ph.D. from 01.10.2004 to 31.03.2007 and thereafter sought another extension of six months study leave. It was the contention of Mr. Borthakur that this period, which the respondent no. 5 spent on study leave, could not have been counted towards teaching experience and, hence, respondent no. 5 was not having the requisite teaching experience of fifteen years after excluding the said period and, as a consequence, he was not entitled to be appointed as Principal in the said college. He drew attention of the court to Clause 3.9.0 of the UGC Regulations, 2010 and urged that the said Clause clearly stipulates that the period of time taken by candidates to acquire M. Phil. and/or Ph.D. Degree shall not be considered as teaching/research experience to be claimed for appointment to the teaching positions. He, thus, urged that in light of the aforesaid exclusion clause in the UGC Regulations, the period of almost three and half years spent on study leave sanctioned to the respondent no. 5 is required to be excluded from the period of his teaching experience and, hence, he would fall well short of the required teaching experience in terms of the advertisement and is, thus, not qualified to be appointed as a Principal in the school.
