SC dismisses Centre, UGC review pleas against department-wise quota for faculties

  1. The apex court has rejected the Centre’s plea seeking review of its earlier verdict by which it had declined to interfere with a decision of the Allahabad High Court on the crucial quota issue.
  2. The Allahabad High Court had ruled that the reservation for the Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Castes (OBCs) for faculty positions in state universities should be implemented in such a manner that each department of a university has to be considered as a unit. Prior to the Order, the reservation in universities was implemented by considering the whole university as a single unit.
  3. The order is being seen as a major setback as once the department wise reservation will be implemented the number of SC, ST candidates will go down significantly.Earlier, Government used to come up with the formula of bunching together similar posts with similar pay scales, qualifications, and so reservation became possible.But now, with department wise quota there would be a less vacancy and reservation would not be possible on them.