MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court on Friday ordered an interim stay against the steps taken by Director of Collegiate Education to regularise guest lecturers who have five years of experience.

Justice MS Ramesh passed the interim order following a petition filed by a candidate, S Pandiammal, participating in the Teachers Recruitment Board’s (TRB) Assistant Professor recruitment.

Pandiammal alleged that the attempt by the director would reduce the number of Assistant Professor vacancies and thereby affect her prospects of getting selected for the post.

The government counsel contended that over 1,600 guest faculties have been making requests for regularisation of their services and the director issued the impugned order to obtain particulars of eligible guest lecturers from colleges for certificate verification. But the counsel admitted that the petitioner’s apprehension was plausible considering the number of vacancies.

The judge referred to a division bench judgment that stated that guest lecturers, who were not appointed in a regular capacity or through a recruitment process held by the TRB, cannot claim preferential treatment.

Hearing all the contentions, he opined that the regularisation of guest lecturers could be done after completion of TRB’s selection process. He therefore ordered an interim stay against the regularisation of guest lecturers till March 3 and adjourned the case to March 1.