GOVT PLANS AN ORDINANCE ON INSTITUTEWIDE RESERVATION

NEWDELHI: The Union government plans to pass an ordinance to allow universities to hire faculty following an institution-wide reservation formula, and not a department-specific one which has come under fire from teachers’ groups and political parties because it will effectively reduce the number of teacher posts reserved for the scheduled class and scheduled tribe (SC/ST) communities.

The ordinance was widely expected after the Supreme Court on July 19 didn’t provide a way out to the Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry which filed a Special Leave Petition, but Tuesday’s disclosure by a government official familiar with the matter is the first real confirmation that it could come soon.

The ministry’s petition challenges an Allahabad High Court decision of last April that was subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court last October and also adopted by the apex body regulating universities, the University Grants Commission.

That order mandates department-specific reservations on the grounds that there are entire departments without a single SC/ST professor.

However, because universities have many departments with just one professor, and the reservation will not apply to this, the impact of the court’s order is the exact opposite of what it wanted to achieve.

If implemented, it would have meant a fall in the number of SC/ST faculty.

The ordinance is also meant to allow universities to continue hiring teachers; recruitment has been frozen since July 19 after the Supreme Court said no faculty would be hired till it ruled on the HRD ministry’s petition.

A second government official who asked not to be identified said the freeze has led to a staff crunch at many central universities.

The president promulgates ordinances or executive orders on the Union cabinet’s recommendation when Parliament is not in session for legislative processes. An ordinance needs Parlia-