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Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court has directed University Grants Commission (UGC) and the Karnataka State Eligibility Test Centre (KSET) to revisit the “Procedure and Criteria for Declaration of KSET Results”.
The court has asked the authorities to ensure that the rule of reservation as mandated in the Karnataka Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes (Reservation and Appointment etc.) Act, 1990 is followed while declaring the results and certifying the candidates as eligible, subject-wise and category-wise.
Justice R Devdas issued this direction while declaring the petitioner A Gopala, an assistant professor at the Government Law College, Chamarajnagar, as successful and to issue a certificate of SET to him. In 2021, the petitioner had filed an application to take up the test for the post of Assistant Professor in the subject-Law.
The petitioner contended that while the procedure prescribed subject-wise and category-wise distribution, the formula in the 2021 notification did not adhere to such selection. He further stated that the state government, through statute, prescribed reservations to the Scheduled Castes at 15% and Scheduled Tribes at 3%, and that under the Act of 1990 reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes must be provided in every cadre, department-wise. There was a cut-off percentage for the ST category in the subject of Law, he submitted.
Justice Devdas noted that, under the UGC formula, candidates in the ST category had not received representation in many subjects such as Visual Arts, Music, Performance Arts, Linguistics, Philosophy, Anthropology, Archaeology, Home Science, Environmental Science, Public Administration, Urdu, Folk Literature, Sanskrit, Law, Criminology etc. The court rejected the contention of UGC and KSET that the overall results comply with the requirement of reservation.
“The reservation of roster as per the Act of 1990 has to be applied subject-wise. It is nobody’s case that there are single slots available in the subject-Law or many such other subjects, thereby preventing reservation,” Justice Devdas said.
The court further said, “In the considered opinion of this court, the first two steps prescribed in the ‘Procedure and Criteria for Declaration of KSET Results’, in the impugned notification do follow the requirement of identification of slots and for providing for reservation. However, the third step gives a go by to the requirement of law in the matter of reservation, as prescribed in the Act of 1990. The third step should therefore be replaced by following the roster point prescribed by the State of Karnataka in its subsequent notifications. Following the roster, would be a simple solution for providing reservation, in the matter of certifying candidates, subject-wise.”