Union Cabinet Clears Ordinance on “200 POINT RESERVATION ROSTER” for University Teachers in Higher Education Institutions

It will consider the university or college as one unit, instead of treating department

• The Union Cabinet approved a proposal for promulgation of The Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers’ Cadre) Ordinance, 2019 to restore the earlier 200-point roster based reservation system in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs).
• The ordinance will bring back the 200-point roster system that considers the university as the unit rather than the 13-point roster system, prescribed by the Allahabad High Court, which considers department as the unit.
• The government stated that the decision will allow filling up of more than 5000 vacancies by direct recruitment in teachers’ cadre duly ensuring that the constitutional provisions of Article 14, 16, and 21 are complied with.
• According to the government, the ordinance will ensure that constitutional provisions of reservation for SC, ST and SEBL in the faculty recruitment will be protected and the current impasse in recruitment would be resolved

What is 200 points Reservation Roster?

• Reservation roster is an application to determine the reservation of posts in a cadre for different categories with reference to the applicable percentage of reservation. The application draws the Reservation Roster(s) by earmarking each post for one or the other category and also helps to determine the category by which the post, which has fallen vacant, is to be filled up.
• 200 point roster system is a roster system for faculty positions that includes 99 posts reserved for the SC, ST and OBC communities and 101 posts for the unreserved. Under this roster, in case there is a deficit of reserved seats in one department, it could be compensated by more people from the reserved communities in other departments in the university. It considers college or university as a unit for  reservation in teaching posts.

How the Roster system does corrects the reservation problems

• The new notification was seen as an attempt to dent efforts to ensure representation for SC/ST/OBC categories as per the constitutional mandate of 15%, 7.5% and 27%. Under the earlier reservation roster, when the university was taken as unit, the SC/ST/OBC got reservations to some extent. But as per the new roster system, the reservations will consider the department as a unit, there was to be a decline in the number of SC/ST/OBCs as professors, assistant professors etc.
• The number of these castes in teaching faculty would have fallen because under the new roster system as the OBC will be eligible for reservation only at the 4th vacancy, SC on the 7th and the ST on the 14th. Department-wise vacancies are usually very few, which means there would be no jobs left by the time SC/ST/OBCs become eligible. 

Constitutional Support

Article 14: every person, who lives within territory of India, has the equal right before the law. the meaning of this all are equal in same line. No discrimination based on religion ,race, caste, sex and place of birth.
Article 16: Equal opportunity for all citizens and thus emphasizes on universality of Indian Citizenship.
Article 21: Protection of life and personal liberty No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.