A university professorship is not a public office amenable to quo warranto.

The petitioner, Dr. V. Madhu, a faculty member of the Cochin University of Science and Technology (“CUSAT”), filed a Public Interest Litigation seeking a writ of quo warranto and quashing of the appointment of Respondent No. 6 as Professor in the Department of Mathematics, CUSAT.

Respondent No. 6 had been appointed as Professor on 7 August 2019 with effect from 24 July 2019.

By the time the petition was filed in 2026, Respondent No. 6 had also become a member of the Senate and the Syndicate of CUSAT.

The petitioner had been teaching in the institution since 2006 and alleged that the appointment was contrary to applicable statutory or regulatory requirements.

The Court observed that the challenge was brought after a considerable delay and appeared to arise from a private dispute between the petitioner and Respondent No. 6.

Whether the office of Professor in CUSAT constitutes a “public office” amenable to a writ of quo warranto.

Whether the Public Interest Litigation challenging Respondent No. 6’s appointment was maintainable, or was in substance a private service dispute filed belatedly and for an ulterior purpose.

Whether the petitioner was entitled to an order quashing Respondent No. 6’s appointment.

The Court applied the principle that a writ of quo warranto lies only where the challenged office is of a public nature, created by a charter, statute, or the Constitution, substantive in character, and actually occupied by the incumbent, as recognised in G. Sasidharan v. State of Kerala and Others, 2026 KHC 312.

Relying on Dr. Neetu Singh v. State of U.P., 2019 SCC OnLine All 5871, the Court held that the office of a Professor in a statutory university does not, merely by reason of the university’s educational functions, become a public office involving the exercise of sovereign governmental functions.

The Court further relied on Ashok Kumar v. State of West Bengal, (2004) 3 SCC 349, for the principle that Public Interest Litigations in service matters are generally not maintainable except in limited cases involving quo warranto, and that courts must decline petitions that are motivated, frivolous, or filed under the guise of public interest.

A public office, in this context, must involve the delegation of some portion of sovereign power for the benefit of the public.

The Court held that the post of Professor at CUSAT did not involve the exercise of executive, legislative, or judicial sovereign functions and therefore did not satisfy the essential character of a public office for the purpose of quo warranto.

Although CUSAT is a statutory university, that status alone was insufficient to convert every academic post into a public office.

The Court also found that the petition was essentially a service-related dispute between two individuals.

The petitioner had an earlier opportunity to challenge the 2019 appointment but approached the Court only in 2026, after Respondent No. 6 had acquired positions in the Senate and Syndicate.

This delay, together with the apparent personal nature of the dispute, justified the Court’s conclusion that the petition had been filed to settle scores rather than to vindicate a genuine public right.

Consequently, the Court found no basis to issue quo warranto or to examine the appointment on the merits.

It held that the professorial post occupied by Respondent No. 6 was not a public office amenable to quo warranto and that the PIL was an impermissible, belated service dispute presented in the guise of public interest.

The writ petition was dismissed, with no order as to costs.

The reply affidavit filed by the respondent was taken on record.