Question : Calculating Vacancies

(a) whether the Government has asked the University Grants Commission (UGC) to
convey to all Universities to start its process of teachers’ appointment by calculating
vacancies based on individual departments;
(b) if so, the details thereof and the steps being taken by the Government so far;
(c) the number of Universities and colleges that are going ahead with the appointments
and calculating the vacancies on the basis of departments which may affect the
representation of SC/ST candidates and if so, the details thereof; and
(d) whether the commission had announced that an individual department should be
considered as the base unit to calculate the number of teaching posts to be reserved for
Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates and if so, the details thereof?

MINISTER OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT
(SHRI RAMESH POKHRIYAL ‘NISHANK’)

(a) to (d): The Central Universities had been issuing their advertisements for teaching
posts since 2006 after preparing the reservation rosters taking ‘University’ as a unit in
accordance with University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines of 2006.

An advertisement of Banaras Hindu University for the post of teachers was
challenged before Hon’ble Allahabad High Court by way of the W.P. No. 43260 of 2016
contending that reservation for the SC/ST/OBC ought to have been applied by treating
the post of different levels in each subject/department as a unit and not the whole
university as a unit.

The Hon’ble Allahabad High Court in its order of W.P.No.43260 of 2016 dated
07.04.2017 quashed these guidelines of UGC and instructed that the unit for reservation
roster should be Department/ subject. Implementation of these orders would have led to
grave miscarriage of justice for the SCs/ STs/ SEBCs. Hence, challenging the orders of
the Hon’ble Allahabad High Court, SLP Nos. 14318 dated 16.04.2018 and 14099 dated
12.4.2018 were filed by Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and
University Grants Commission respectively in the Hon’ble Supreme Court. These SLPs
were dismissed on 22.01.2019. Subsequently both MHRD and UGC had filed review
petitions, which were dismissed on 27.02.2019.

In order to protect the rights of the SCs, STs and SEBCs, and to ensure their
adequate representations in teaching positions, the Central Educational Institutions
(Reservation in Teachers’ Cadre) Ordinance, 2019 was promulgated by the Hon’ble
President on 7th March, 2019 to ensure preparation of the reservation roster considering
the University/ College as a Unit. Hence the unit of reservation will be University/
Institution and not Department/ Subject.

The Notice for replacement of the Ordinance by the Bill has already been given in
the Lok Sabha.

In pursuance to the Ordinance, on 7th March, 2019, the Ministry of Human
Resource Development has issued directives to the University Grants Commission to
start the recruitment with immediate effect. The University Grants Commission has
reiterated the instructions to all the University on 8th March, 2019 to implement the
reservation of posts in direct recruitment by considering the University/College/Institution
as one unit.
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