Bill on reservation in central academic cadre providesrelief to disadvantaged sections

Legislation to overcome the effects of court verdicts is notalways a good idea. However, sometimes an exception ought to be made in thelarger public interest. One such law is the Centre’s Bill to ensure thatreservation for scheduled castes, tribes and other backward classes inappointments to central educational institutions is preserved. The CentralEducational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers’ Cadre) Bill, 2019, passed bythe Lok Sabha, replaces an ordinance promulgated in March. Its main object isto restore the system of treating an institution or a university as a singleunit to apply the reservation roster, and thus help fill 7,000 teaching vacancies.It seeks to get around a 2017 judgment of the Allahabad High Court strikingdown University Grants Commission regulations that treated the institution asthe unit for determining the roster, and directing that each department be therelevant unit. In short, reservation should be department-wise, and notinstitution-wise, the court ruled. The Supreme Court rejected the Centre’sappeal against the order. But the narrower basis for applying quotas would meanfewer aspirants from OBC and SC/ST sections would be recruited as assistantprofessors. In the interest of social justice, it had to restore the system ofhaving a wider pool of posts in which the quotas of 27% for OBC, 15% for SC and7.5% ST could be effectively applied. From this perspective, the Bill provideswelcome relief for aspirants from the disadvantaged sections of society. It isnot that the court was manifestly wrong in applying the roster based on asmaller unit, that is, a department in a university or institution. The HighCourt noted that having the whole institution as a unit would result in somedepartments having only reservation beneficiaries and others only those fromthe open category. But the counterpoint is equally valid. Having the departmentas the unit would mean smaller faculties would not have any reservation. In theroster system, it needs 14 posts to accommodate SC and ST candidates, as theirturn would come only at the seventh and 14th vacancy. There may be no vacanciesin many departments for many years, with none from the reserved categories fordecades. On the other hand, taking the institution as the unit would give moreopportunities for these sections. According to the UGC’s annual report for2017-18, nearly two-thirds of assistant professors in Central universities arefrom the general category. Their representation would go up further, as thepresent Bill also applies the 10% quota for the economically weak among thoseoutside the reservation loop. Applying the court’s department-wise roster normwould have deepened the sense of deprivation of the backward classes and SC/STcommunities. To that extent, the new enactment will serve a vital socialpurpose.