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The proposal for promulgation of “The Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers’ Cadre) Ordinance, 2019) was approved by the Union Cabinet. It aims at implementing University/College as the unit of reservation roster for teaching posts and not Department/Subject. The ordinance will overturn the Supreme Courts decision directing subject wise reservation in teaching posts.
The Press Information Bureau stated in a press release-
"This decision will allow filling up of more than 5000 vacancies by direct recruitment in Teachers' Cadre duly ensuring that the Constitutional Provisions of Articles 14, 16 and 21 shall be complied with and stipulated reservation criteria for the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes and Socially and Educationally Backward Classes are met with"
The Supreme Court in January had dismissed the Centres challenge against the judgement given by Allahabad High Court in Vivekanand Tiwari v Union of India which held reservations in teaching posts in Universities were to be applied by Subject/Discipline as unit and not University/College.
On April 7, 2017, Justices U U Lalit & Indira Banerjee, in Vivekanand Tiwari v Union of India refused leave to appeal to the ministry of Human Resource Department to challenge the High Courts judgment in the case. Clauses No.6(c) & 8(a)(v) of the UGC Guidelines which stated the procedure of reservation applications for SC/ST/OBC in teaching posts was quashed. According to clause 6(c), all posts under a University had to be grouped together for reservation but not in department-wise cadre. As per the decision in R K Sabharwal v State of Punjab, clause 8(a)(v) provided directions for application of 40-point or 100-point roster to the total no. of posts in a cadre. Pay-scale was considered as a factor for determining the cadre.
The reasoning of the bench behind Subject-wise criteria was:
An Assistant Professor in subject 'A' cannot be an applicant for direct appointment as Associate Professor or Professor in subject 'B', 'C' or 'D'. He can only apply for the post in the subject 'A'. The seniority for becoming Head of the Department would be of the teachers in the same subject. There is no interse competition between the teachers in the same level of different subjects as all posts of higher level from entry level are by way of selection. There is no such provision in the teaching cadre in the Universities of promotion being granted on the basis of seniority irrespective of the department or the subject. Their competition is with candidates of their subject/department and not of different subjects.
It was held that sameness of pay-scale was not to be considered for teaching posts in different subjects as a single cadre. The Court held it would violate article 14 & 16 of the Constitution of India.
The court held, “ If the University is taken as a 'Unit' for every level of teaching and applying the roster, it could result into some departments/subjects having all reserved candidates and some having only unreserved candidates.”
SC had earlier dismissed review petitions filed by the Centre and University Grants Commission.
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