TV Bindu, a professor in Kerala, won a case against the illegal appointment of a lecturer at the Department of Education, after 14 years of fighting it. The Supreme Court last Monday directed the Kerala University to appoint Bindu, who had been denied the lecturer post though she deserved it in the selection process in 2007, reported Live Law. The SC bench said that though Bindu will not be entitled to arrears of salary, she can get 'notional fixation ad fitment in her grade' after she is appointed Assistant Professor.

It was in 2003 that the selection process happened for the post of a lecturer at the Kerala University's Department of Education. There were two vacancies in the general category and three candidates including Bindu had applied for it. When the rank list was released, Bindu came in the third place. In 2007 the other two applicants were selected. Manorama Online reports that the first rank was won by the wife of a syndicate member.

Certain that her achievements merited a better rank, Bindu approached the High Court in 2010.

A single bench of the High Court directed the Kerala University to appoint her after it concluded that she was not awarded the maximum marks she should have secured for the papers she had published. However the university appealed against it and the single bench verdict was nullified by a division bench in 2018. It is after that that Bindu approached the Supreme Court. The SC noted that Bindu's journal that merited better marks was 'Experiments in Functions' (and not ‘Experiments in Education’ as the HC had remarked).

The apex court further noted that Bindu was entitled to more marks on the strength of three articles she published in the journal and should be treated as the person who received the first rank.

Bindu, in her interview to Manorama, said that there was never any pressure on her to withdraw her complaint against the university but there was a lot of mental tension in fighting the case for nearly one and a half decades. It was about people questioning her skills and in the end, the truth has won, she said.