NEW DELHI: In what appears to be a goof-up of sorts, the Human Resources Development Ministry will now have to ask the higher education regulator to issue a revised notification to universities to include economically weaker section quota in faculty recruitment after it “forgot” to do so last week.
After the Union Cabinet approved an Ordinance to re-introduce institution-wise reservation for scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward caste categories in universities last Wednesday, the University Grants Commission had issued a notification to begin faculty recruitment process in universities.
“This process had been on hold since July last year due to uncertainty in reservation policy. However, the newly adopted EWS quota was not mentioned in the UGC circular causing confusion among universities,” an HRD ministry official said.
“Therefore a revised circular will be issued soon to clear the ambiguity.”
In October 2017, the UGC introduced rules, making reservation applicable at the department level instead of at the university level. The UGC rules had followed an Allahabad High Court order of April 2017.
The UGC rules had led to widespread protests across universities with professors and critics saying that such a move will deprive many reserved category candidates of employment.
The Centre was forced to bring in an Ordinance in last Cabinet before the announcement of general elections after the two special leave petitions filed by to alter the High Court order were rejected by the Supreme Court.