DUTA Press Release: 3 December 2018

The sincerity of the Government towards reservation for SC, ST and OBC in the teaching profession in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution has once again been thrown open to question.
The Allahabad High Court in its order on 30th November 2018 in WRIT – A No. – 24658 of 2018 Akhil Mishra vs State of U.P. & six others (including the Union of India and the University Grants Commission) has kept in abeyance the effect and operation of the communication dated 18th July, 2018 issued by the Deputy Secretary to the Government of India as also the consequential direction of the UGC dated 19th July, 2018.

This is a direct consequence of the manner in which the Government of India has chosen to proceed on challenges to its reservation roster that treated university / college as a unit for determining reserved positions in teaching. The realisation that department / subject wise rosters was slowing down the attainment of constitutionally mandated percentages made the UGC issue strict guidelines with respect to reservation roster in 2006, following direction from the Government of India.
In 2017, the Government of India and the UGC chose not to challenge the order of the Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court in WA No. 43260 of 2016, Shri Vivekanand Tewari and anr. vs. UoI. Instead, on 5 March 2018, the UGC issued a notification to universities to give up the principle of college/university as units and adopt subject/department wise roster. In view of the widespread protests by the DUTA and others against the unjust change, the Government agreed to finally file an SLP in the Apex Court.

However, following the 5th March 2018 Notification, several universities, including Central University of Rajasthan, BHU, Central University of Tamil Nadu, Indira Gandhi National Tribunal University and Central University of Haryana, promptly issued new advertisements in which reserved posts are negligible in number or completely missing. Because of continuous protests by the DUTA and several joint forums, the MHRD/UGC asked universities to put on hold the appointments on the basis of 5th March 2018 letter. On 19th July 2018, the UGC, on the directions of the MHRD issued on 18th July 2018, issued a notification to all Central Universities, State Universities and Deemed to be Universities receiving grant-in-aid from the UGC, to postpone recruitment.

In view of the threat of indefinite stoppage in the process of appointment while several thousand teachers have been working in ad hoc capacity for more than a decade in Delhi University alone and the policy thrust of the Government of India / UGC towards self-financing (commercialisation) and privatisation (both of which favour contractualisation and casualisation of the teaching profession with little regard for attracting talent to the profession), the DUTA and other organisations have been demanding that the Government issues an Ordinance addressing the reservation roster so that permanent appointments can take place without any further delay.

Shri Prakash Javadekar has issued statements more than once about the Government’s proposal to bring an Ordinance to resolve the matter in favour of implementation of the 200 point Roster treating College/University as unit. While the DUTA welcomed the statements when they appeared, it has been forced to initiate protest actions to demand immediate promulgation of the promised Ordinance as several months have passed. The DUTA has also approached political parties to take up the matter in the upcoming session of Parliament.

The repeated mistakes / tardiness on the matter point to errors of commission rather than omission on the part of the Government. The DUTA reiterates it demand for an immediate promulgation of the promised Ordinance so that appointment/regularisation of teachers can begin on the basis of a just reservation roster without any further delay.