No de-reservation of seats, UGC chairperson clarifies after fiasco

New Delhi: Days after the University Grants Commission’s draft guidelines for the implementation of the reservation in Higher Education Institutes caused furore with its policy of de-reservation in case there are not enough candidates from the SC/ST category, the higher education body did damage control and said that the draft guidelines are not final and that there will be no de-reservation.

“The UGC has brought out comprehensive draft guidelines on the effective implementation of reservations in Central Educational Institutions. These are draft guidelines and not final. There is going to be no de-reservations in CEIs but only a concerted effort to fill up all the backlog positions in the reserved category,” UGC chairperson M Jagadesh Kumar told DH.

The draft guidelines for the Implementation of the Reservation Policy of the Government of India in Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) were issued by the UGC on December 26 last year, with January 28 as the last date for stakeholder feedback. The move, however, led to widespread criticism.

“A vacancy reserved for SC or ST or OBC cannot be filled by a candidate other than an SC or ST or OBC candidate, as the case may be. However, a reserved vacancy may be declared unreserved by following the procedure of de-reservation, where after, it can be filled as an unreserved vacancy,” Chapter X of the guidelines stated.

The guidelines had also stated that as there is a general ban on de-reservation of reserved vacancies in case of direct recruitment, in “rare and exceptional cases” when a vacancy in a Group A service cannot be allowed to remain vacant in public interest, the University concerned should prepare a proposal for de-reservation of the vacancy, keeping in mind certain parameters.

The guidelines also stated that the proposal for de-reservation in case of Group ‘C’ or ‘D’ should go to the Executive Council of the University and in case of Group ‘A’ or ‘B’ should be submitted to the Ministry of Education. “After receiving the approval, the post may be filled and reservation may be carried forward,” the draft guidelines stated.

The draft rules had also stated that in the case of promotions, too, if sufficient numbers of SC/ST candidates fit for promotion against reserved vacancies are not available, “such vacancies may be de-reserved and filled by the candidates of other communities”. The power for such approvals will be delegated to the UGC or the Ministry of Education, keeping in mind certain conditions.

The guidelines led to a furore, with Congress’s general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh saying on X that there is a conspiracy to end the reservation given to SC, ST and OBC in higher education institutions. “A few years ago, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had talked about reviewing reservation … This proposal of UGC is in line with the intentions of Mohan Bhagwat and is clearly injustice to Dalits, tribals and backward people. Recently, when Jananayak Karpoori Thakur ji was given Bharat Ratna, Rahul Gandhi had said that the country needs 'real justice' and not 'symbolic politics'. Modi government is only doing 'symbolic politics' in the matter of Dalits, backward classes and tribals. What is their real intention is once again revealed through this proposal of UGC,” he posted, demanding that the guidelines be withdrawn.

The ministry of education, too, send out a clarification. “Reservation in Central Educational Institutions (CEI) is provided for all posts in direct recruitment in Teacher’s cadre as per the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers’ Cadre) Act, 2019. After enactment of this Act, no reserved post is to be de-reserved. Ministry of Education has given directives to all the CEIs to fill up the vacancies strictly as per the 2019 ACT,” the ministry said in a statement.

Former UGC chairperson Sukhadeo Thorat said that the ministry’s clarification is a “positive” development. “They have completely backtracked and withdrawn the guidelines, and that is a positive development. Additionally, they have said that they will also fill the backlog of vacancies of SC/ST categories,” Thorat said.