The flawed unit of academic quotas (Reservations in education)

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 The flawed unit of academic quotas (Reservations in education)

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• What 77th amendment did : In 1995, the 77th constitutional amendment (now extended to Kashmir) restored reservations in promotions, after a 9-judge SC bench in Indra Sawhney case (1992) had prohibited SC/ST reservations in promotions (while upholding the OBC reservations through Mandal Commission). The SC had, in a way, tried to protect the interests of general category candidates in promotions.
• 81st amendment, 2000 : The 81st Constitution Amendment Act, 2000 inserted a new clause (4B) after clause (4A) in Article 16 of the Indian Constitution. It overturned the SC decision against the "carrying forward" rule that permitted the filling of unfilled reserved seats in subsequent years. 
• 85th amendment, 2001 : The 85th Constitution Amendment Act, 2001 restored consequential seniority to promotee SC/ST employees as a "catch up" rule introduced by the court in Ajit Singh case (1999) was causing hardship. Thus, it extended the benefit of reservation in favour of the SC/ST in matters of promotion with consequential seniority.
• 2019 Ordinance : The Allahabad High Court judgment in Vivekanand Tiwari case (2017) had made "department" rather than "university" as the unit of reservations in any University. The Modi govt. brought an ordinance in March 2019 to undo it.
• What was the case : The Vivekanand Tiwari case challenged the BHU advt. for teaching positions, in which "university" was treated as the unit of reservation (a policy of the UGC, and BHU is a Central University). The judgment changed that system.
• Article 335 : It says that claims of SC/STs to posts in Centre and State "shall" be taken into consideration (not may or will, but shall). In law, shall means it is mandatory. The Allahabad HC judge wrote several pages indicating why reservations may not be needed in University positions at all.
• Logical is illogical : When we look at reservations department-wise, we see that there is no scope for interchangeability of posts across disciplines. Each single post in each discipline is a separate post. Lecturers, readers and professors in a university have same scale etc., but cannot be clubbed together. But if you look at the reality, even with "university" as a unit, in more than 40 Central Univs, SCs / STs at Professor and Assoc. Prof. levels are under-represented. If you take "department" as the unit of reservation, the numbers will collpase further.
• Govt's review petition : The GoI told the Supreme Court that BHU had 1930 faculty posts in May 2017, and with "university" as basis, it has to reserve 289 for SCs, 143 for STs and 310 for OBCs. Under the dept. formula, the numbers drop to just 119, 29 and 220 resp.
• An end to reservation : Practically speaking, across Universities, the implementation of department-wise reservations would mean the beginning of an end to reservations in education institutions. A Vice-Chancellor needs minimum 10 years experience as a Professor. In 2018, out of 496 VCs in India, only 6 SC, 6 ST and 48 OBCs were VCs! OLD REFERENCE IMAGE
• Congratulations : The govt. did well to bring the ordinance. But diversity on campus needs to be increased systematically. 
• Summary : The department-wise reservation in Universities for teaching posts would have meant a practical end to the policy of reservation itself, hence the govt. hurriedly brought an ordinance to nullify it.

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