Several student bodies and teacher’s associations of higher education institutions (HEIs) in Delhi have slammed the University Grants Commission (UGC) for issuing draft guidelines to de-reserve vacancies meant for SC, ST and OBC candidates in the absence of sufficient number of reserved candidates from these categories.
The Democratic Teachers Front issued a statement on Monday asserting that the draft guidelines aim to justify the wrongful practice of labeling reserved positions as 'Not Found Suitable' (NFS), which undermines the principle of reservation mandated by the Constitution. De-reserving these positions represents a further step towards excluding socially and economically disadvantaged groups from opportunities for knowledge production and empowerment through employment.
“According to the draft, the executive council of the university has the authority to de-reserve Group C and D positions internally, whereas for Group A positions, the proposal has to be forwarded to the Ministry of Education for consideration… Amongst the 45 Central universities we observe that only 14 per cent professors belong to the above mentioned categories. The remaining are from the General category,” the Student Federation of India said. This brings in the risk of subjectivity and potential bias.
However, UGC chairman M Jagadesh Kumar posted on X on Sunday, “This is to clarify that there has been no de-reservation of reserved category positions in Central Education Institutions (CEI). What is put out is just a draft and anything related to de-reservations will be taken out, while making the final document.”
According to the draft guidelines, there is a broad prohibition on de-reserving reserved vacancies during direct recruitment. However, in exceptional circumstances where leaving a vacancy in a Group A position vacant would not be in the public interest, the respective university can propose de-reservation. This proposal would need to include details such as the job title, salary range, service name, job responsibilities, necessary qualifications, efforts made to fill the vacancy, and justification for why leaving the position vacant is not feasible.
A Delhi University official, on condition of anonymity, said that “in case of a few subjects such as East Asian Studies it is difficult to find candidates from the reserved categories to fill the positions. In such cases we keep releasing the advertisement of these posts again and again until they get filled up. The DU has never de-reserved any positions up until now….The de-reservation of positions can apply only to certain subjects where positions are not getting filled but can’t be applied to main departments.”
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