INTRODUCTION
Thousands of
people marched in unison from Mandi House to Parliament Street on 31st
January, 2019. All these people were registering their protest against the
newly opted 13 Point Roster system in the appointing process for the Teaching
Staff in Central and State-funded Universities.
A notification of UGC dated 5 March 2018 informed
the Registrar(s) of all Central Universities, all State Universities receiving
grant-in-aid, all Deemed to be Universities receiving grant-in-aid by
UGC/Government and the Inter University Centres of UGC that a new system of
implementing reservation in these institutions is being devised based on the
Hon’ble High Court of Allahabad judgement dated 07-04-2017. (MHRD, 2018)
On
07-04-2017, the Allahabad High Court gave the judgment establishing that
hereafter the reservations
in teaching posts in Universities are to be applied by taking
subject/discipline as the unit instead of university as a whole by quashing
clause No.6(c) of the UGC Guidelines dated 25 August 2006. (Vivekanand Tiwari And Anr. vs
Union of India And 5 Ors, 2017) The High Court accepted
the plea that if the whole University is said to be one unit, it could result
in few departments having all the reserved seats, and other departments having
all the unreserved candidates.
This issue
came into limelight again in 2019 when the Supreme Court rejected the Central
Government’s plea to nullify the Allahabad High Court order. The bench of
Justice U U Lalit and Indira Banarjee refused leave to appeal to Ministry of
Human Resource Development to challenge the High Court order. (Sebastian,
2019)
ROSTER SYSTEM IN EDUCATION
Online dictionary
Merriam Webster defines Roster as a ‘list giving the order in which a duty is
to be performed’. The roster system earmarks each post for one or the other
category
Roster
system used in Universities is a process through which college faculty appointments
are done. This faculty includes Professors, Associate Professors and Assistant
professors, who have cleared their NET examinations.
The roster
system earmarks each post for a candidate belonging to a certain category
varying between Schedule Caste, Schedule Tribe, Other Backward Caste and the
General or the Unreserved category. The reservation is provided to Schedule
Castes (SCs), Schedule Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Castes (OBCs) at the
rate of 15%, 7.5% and 27% respectively which totals to 49.5% reserved seats.
The left 50.5% seats are termed as Unreserved posts.
Two types of
Roster Systems are being taken in consideration here:
1. 200 Point Roster System;
2. 13 Point Roster System
1.200 Point Roster System
Definition: 200 Point Roster is a method of implementing reservation in
Government posts in which 99 seats are reserved for SC, ST and OBC category,
while 101 seats are Unreserved. This system was implemented by considering
whole University as one unit.
History: The reservation for SC/ST and OBC was provided in Central government
jobs in 1950 and 1991 respectively, while it was implemented in University of
Delhi in 1997 and 2007 respectively.
Due to late implementation and the faulty implementation of 13 Point Roster
System, DU still has a lower representation of the reserved categories.
Details: 200
Point Roster System is a system in which a whole University is taken as one
unit which means all the colleges and faculties appoint Teachers by a unified
system. This system fulfils the 49.5% Reservation requirement asked by our
Constitution.
| SOURCE: https://www.epw.in/journal/2019/6/commentary/why-are-reserved-categories-objecting-13.html |
200 Point
Roster system seems like in favour of the Unreserved
categories in its earlier parts. But as
we come closer to the 200th seat, gradually we can see a shift of
interest towards the Reserved categories, as we can see the picture.
DRAWBACK
As we can see, the earlier seats, or the seats
close to the head of the reservation chart, are unreserved while majority of
those in the end are reserved. This could lead to an inter-departmental
disparity with the departments lying early in the Roster appointment system getting
saturated by candidates belonging to the Unreserved category while later
departments getting more candidates belonging to the Reserved categories of
some departments with all candidates from Reserved seats and other departments might
get saturated by all Unreserved candidates. If this was continued, department
wise representation of marginalised communities could have been affected.
2.13 POINT ROSTER SYSTEM
Definition: The newly appointed 13 Point Roster
system was a result of the Allahabad High Court order against the case of
Vivekanand Tiwari And Anr. vs Union of India and 5 Ors., 2017.
This system in implemented by taking a Department or College as one unit.
DRAWBACK
13 Point
Roster system was widely criticized by the Intellectuals,
Professors and other people as it is fundamentally and structurally against the
given arrangement of Reservation as laid down by the Constitution of India.
This system
does not fit mathematically into the criteria of a just and fair reservation
system because it does not accommodate the 15%, 7.5% and 27% reservation quota
for the Schedule Caste (SC), Schedule Tribe (ST) and the Other Backword Caste
(OBC) respectively. It is faulty because the seat arrangement in 13-point
system is calculated through dividing 100 by the respective required percentage
of reservation. Since 27% reservation is given to OBCs, every 4th
seat will be given to an OBC candidate (100/27=3.7, so 4th seat). Similarly,
15% reservation is for SCs, every 7th seat will be given to a SC
candidate (100/15=6.7, so 7th seat) and finally for an ST candidate,
due to 7.5% reservation, every 14th seat is allotted to a candidate
of this category (100/7.5=13.3, hence 14th seat).
This system
looks fair, but the disparity lies in the fact that this system is being used
for a very limited number of seats, just 14 seats, which leads to only 5
reserved seats out 14, thus reducing reservation to meagre 35%, which is way
less than the required percentage of reservation i.e. 49%.
CONCLUSION
An
anti-reservation ideology has long been working in our Institutions. Whether it
is late implementation of reservation or the conscious appointment of Reserved
category candidates in less important faculties like regional languages etc,
(Yes, this is possible because it is in the hands of the University to decide
which department should come first in the roster appointment system. Only
applicable in 200-point roster system).
The
Allahabad High Court order was cunningly used by the policy makers to devise
this unfair 13 Point Roster system. The Allahabad High Court never directed the
UGC to form a completely new system for reservation, it only gave order to take
a department or college as one Unit to avoid the accumulation of teachers
belonging to one category in a department and people belonging to another category
in the other faculty. The decision of the court was grossly misinterpreted.
Leave 13
Point system, even the 200-point system was quite unjust as very less Universities
appoint 200 faculty members in one go. Only 64 positions were to be filled in
2016 in the University of Delhi. (Web
Desk, India Today, March 14, 2016). We know the earlier seats in 200 Point System
are more unreserved, which means most of these 64 seats will be occupied by the
unreserved candidates and the candidates belonging to reserved categories will
be left out. If we consider 13-point system under this same criterion, it would
come out as barbaric as no faculty and department appoint 14 teachers at the
same time.
Recently,
after widespread protests and harsh criticism from a wide part of society, the
Union Cabinet approved the Ordinance to restore the older 200 Point Roster
system. This was decided in the last meeting of the Cabinet before the 2019 Lok
Sabha elections which means any further action will be suspended till the new
government forms. (FP Staff, March 7,
2019) But as we can, 200 Point system is also inadequate in providing
proper Reservation.
References
BIBLIOGRAPHY
· Why are the Reserved Categories objecting to the
13-Point Roster? (Anish Gupta, Amit Thorat)
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