Rollback UGC quota system for faculty appointment: Thawar Chand Gehlot to HRD

Social justice and empowerment minister, Thawar Chand Gehlot, has asked the HRD minister, Prakash Javadekar, to rollback a new quota system for the appointment of faculty in universities that was announced by the University Grants Commission (UGC) , officials familiar with the matter.

The government had earlier asked the UGC to make a department-wise roster of teacher vacancies reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidates, instead of the current norm of having an institution-wise table.

In his communication to Javadekar, Gehlot said the UGC proposal contradicts constitutional provisions as the government is duty-bound to ensure proper representation of “marginalised sections” of society in teaching position, people familiar with the development said.

The commission order, which followed an Allahabad high court directive that was upheld by the Supreme Court, rules that to calculate quotas for SCs, STs and OBCs, every department of a university be considered a separate unit. At present, the entire university is treated as a single unit.

Earlier this month, the human resource development ministry too had formed an inter-ministerial committee to review the new reservation system for the appointment of faculty in universities based on the recommendations of parliamentary standing committee on the welfare of SCs and STs.

Officials said that the committee has advised the government to file a special leave
petition on the Allahabad high court order.

The committee has advised the government to seek legal opinion on the matter after studying all aspects of the issue next week, people familiar with development said.