This follows an order by the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court last month saying that the vacant posts of principals and teachers should be filled before May 31. According to the order, if the colleges fail to appoint the principals, the universities should start the process of disaffiliation of these colleges from the academic year 2010-11.

The UoP has taken cognisance of the order and issued letters to the colleges about appointing full-time principals on December 24. “Now we will issue fresh directives to those colleges that don’t have full-time principals. The parent organisations that are running these colleges will really have to hurry up to fill up the posts,” said Pandit Vidyasagar, director of the UoP’s board of college and university development.

He said with 300 colleges without full-time principals, day-to-day working was difficult.

Vidyasagar said that the University Grants Commission is pushing for more and more colleges to become autonomous, but without full-time principals, this could not be achieved. “When there is no full-time principal it affects the overall administration of the college and hampers development,” he said.

The president of Principals’ Forum Nandkumar Nikam welcomed the move. “We have been fighting on this issue for the last five to six years. The officiating principals don’t have rights to even sanction leave applications. That makes basic administration difficult. Now with the court order in place, at least the process of filling up the posts will get speeded up,” he said.

President of Pune University Teachers’ Association Atul Bagul also welcomed the decision but said it would have happened long back if the university had taken stringent action against those colleges that had kept the posts of principals vacant for long. “There are colleges in the state which don’t have full time principals for last eight to ten years. The officiating principals had become toys at the hands of the heads of educational institutes. The High Court order has come as a relief,” said Bagul.