Overview

• On July 11, 2025, the Delhi High Court instructed DU to regularise Namita Khare and Mehak Talwar, who have served as ad-hoc assistant professors in the Germanic and Romance Studies department since 2017.
• Justices Ajay Digpaul and C Hari Shankar noted that DU failed to conduct open recruitment for their posts, instead repeatedly extending the professors’ tenures with artificial breaks.
• The court found that DU consciously used ad-hoc appointments as a substitute for permanent roles, circumventing its obligation to provide fair service conditions and excluding eligible candidates under UGC norms.
• It held that denying regularisation to Khare and Talwar despite their decade-long meritorious service violated Articles 14 and 16’s equality and public employment guarantees.
• The ruling establishes a precedent for thousands of temporary faculty across India to challenge arbitrary screening guidelines and seek regular recruitment.