Varsities, colleges must implement quota rules, says UGC

Universities and colleges will now have to implement the government's reservation rules department wise or subject wise as they fill up vacant teaching positions across all levels.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) has notified its revised rules in this connection, stipulating for calculation of teaching positions for each of their departments separately to implement reservation rules for candidates belonging to the scheduled caste (SC) and scheduled tribe (ST) at the department level.

So far, the UGC rules provided for filling up of the vacant posts of the faculty members with implementation of reservation rules on the basis of the total number of posts sanctioned for a university or a college.

The change in rules comes about a year after the Allahabad High Court ordered for treating an institution's department as a unit for implementation of quota in the appointment of SC and ST candidates as faculty members, instead of the current norm of taking the institution as one unit for calculation of vacant positions.

The Supreme Court also upheld the high  court's verdict that came in April 2017.

"In case of reservation for SC/ST, all universities, deemed to be universities, colleges and other grant-in-aid institutions and the centres shall prepare the roaster system keeping the department/subject as a unit for all levels of teachers as applicable," the UGC said, notifying amendments in the reservation rules for appointment of faculty members late on Monday evening.

The department wise roaster "shall"  be applied to the total number of posts in each of the categories - professor, associate professor, assistant professor - within the department or the subject, it added.

The higher education regulator directed all universities and colleges to implement the government's decision and also apprise their constituents and affiliated colleges of this for an "immediate follow up" of its directive.

It also directed the vice chancellors of all universities to prepare "fresh roasters" within a month of the notification of the amended rules.

The UGC, however, remained silent on the implementation of the revised reservation rules in cases where an institution's departments have just one sanctioned post of teachers, drawing sharp criticism from the various sections of the teaching community

"The implementation of the UGC's new formula for implementation of reservations in appointment of teachers would only further reduce the number of teaching posts reserved for appointment of qualified candidates belonging to SC, ST and other socially and educationally backward classes," a Delhi University faculty said.