Why Are the Reserved Categories Objecting to the 13-point Roster?

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When the department is taken as a “unit,” it can have at least one appointment from each of the reserved category, only when a minimum of 14 appointments are made in that department. This is not possible in many departments as their numerical strength is much lower than 14 faculty positions. Even if it was the case that 14 appointments were possible, the earmarked percentage of reservation may still not be achieved (known as the 13-point roster). However, when a university/college is taken as a unit and all departments are pooled, every reserved category gets the earmarked percentage of reservation, when 200 appointments are made (known as the 200-point roster). The advantage of the 200-point roster over the 13-point roster is that the deficit of reservation in one department is compensated by other departments.

In order to study the impact of this decision on deprived sections, the Delhi University (DU hereafter) could be a good case due to its location and large number of affiliated colleges. Rosters and Reserved

Positions

It is important to note that the 13-point roster was implemented in DU only in 1997 to provide reservation to SC and ST with the following specifications. The first six seats were kept unreserved, the seventh post was kept reserved for SC, and the 14th post for ST. After the completion of one full cycle, the same cycle was repeated. Later, in order to accommodate the 27% reservation for OBC, every fourth seat was kept reserved for the OBC in the same roster. In this manner, every fourth, seventh, eighth, 12th and 14th position was reserved (Table 1, p 12).

Reservation Policies In India

It is clear from column 3 of Table 1 that reservation was 0% for the first three seats. Based on the 13-point roster, as long as there are 14 positions, the percentage of reservation increases for every position marked for the reserved category. Nevertheless, even after completing a full cycle of 14 positions, it reaches its highest level of 35.7%, which is substantially short of the constitutionally mandated 49.5% of reservation. Further, if the strength of a department is below 14 positions, it widens the gap between the constitutionally mandated and actually realised percentage of reservation.

Fallacy of Composition

  • The 13-point roster is therefore faulty and was made on the basis of dividing 100 by the percentage of reservation given to any reserved group. Since reservation for OBC is 27% they would be given every fourth position (100/27=3.7→ 4th position), while SC (100/15=6.7→7th position) and ST (100/7.5=13.3→14th position) would be given seventh and 14th positions respectively.
  • It is clear from columns 2 and 3 of Table 1, that despite the constitutionally mandated 50% reservation, those belonging to reserved categories were getting only five out of 14 positions, while nine out of 14 positions were being kept unreserved (in one sense it is reserved for the general population!).
  • The most interesting part of the calculation of roster is that only reserved positions are calculated using this formula. All the positions left after earmarking reserved positions are assumed to be given to unreserved categories. The fallacy of this calculation of the roster can be understood if we calculate posts allocation for the unreserved category, by the same formula as was used in the case of reserved categories.
  • In that case every second post shall be kept unreserved (100/50 =2→2nd position), since 50% posts are supposed to be kept unreserved.
  • The answer to this puzzle can be found in the fallacy of the calculations for determining the composition. Had the roster for reserved positions been made, taking all reserved categories together (50%), every second position (100/50=2→2nd position) would have been reserved and all the positions would then be distributed within all reserved categories according to their respective reservation shares that is OBC–27%, SC–15% and ST–7.5%.
  • We can see in columns 5 and 6 of Table 1, that reservation could have been given to reserved category without breaching 50% cap laid down by Supreme Court, if every even number position is kept reserved in the 13-point roster. This formula will increase the proportion of reservation for SC, ST and OBC from 7%, 7% and 21% respectively in the 13-point roster to 14%, 7% and 29% respectively in the modified 13-point roster suggested by the authors.

Reservation Policies In India

  • In this way the modified reservation formula will bring up the proportion of reservation provided to each category close to the proportion fixed by our constitution. However, a mathematical juggling has been used by the policymakers to reduce the constitutionally mandated reservation for the deprived sections.
  • Moreover, this faulty 13-point roster denies even a single representation from the deprived sections in smaller departments of DU and its affiliated colleges (in all other institutions too) where sometimes a maximum of three teachers are required, for example, in departments such as Sanskrit, history, political science, environment science, all regional languages, etc (since reservation is applied only from fourth position onwards).
  • For instance, let us assume that three teachers are required in the Sanskrit department of all the 70 colleges of DU. In this situation, at least 210 teachers of Sanskrit will be appointed without appointing even a single teacher from any reserved category. If six teachers are required in the department, then out of the 420 teachers of Sanskrit only 70 teachers belonging to the OBC category would be appointed without appointing even a single teacher from the SC or ST category.

The Change

  • The 200-point roster was adopted from 2013 onwards, across most government institutions, following a UGC circular. According to this roster, all departments were to be pooled and the entire institution (university, college, etc) was to be taken as a unit for the calculation of positions for a particular category. Under this formula, every reserved category gets the earmarked percentage of reservation mandated by the Constitution, when a cycle of 200 appointments is completed (hence the 200-point roster). This formula was implemented after much deliberations and discussions, to rectify the basic problems with the 13-point roster, that is, inadequate representation of reserved categories.
  • As the 200-point roster starts to be implemented in any institution, it can be seen that it is tilted in favour of the unreserved category in the beginning (the head) of the appointment process. As more and more appointments are made and we approach 200 seats, the appointments turn in favour of the reserved categories. What this means is that, if we compare every quartile (of seats) with its subsequent quartile in 200-point roster, we find that, the farther we move from the head of the distribution of seat allocation, the percentage share of reserved categories is likely to increase. Since 200 point roster makes a pool of all departments/subjects of an institution, the departments placed prior in the sequence of roster allocations will have proportionately higher percentage of teachers belonging to unreserved category while every subsequent department is likely to have proportionately more number of reserved teachers.
  • This would result in interdepartmental disparity in the distribution of reserved and unreserved teachers. The same was observed by the honourable Allahabad High Court (upheld by the Supreme Court) in its decision on 7 April 2017. So while the 13-point roster was giving less representation to the reserved category candidates, the 200-point roster was generating inter department/subject disparity in the distribution of appointment of teachers belonging to general and reserved categories, despite providing comparatively better representation to reserved categories (Vivekanand Tiwari and Anr v Union of India and 5 Ors 2017).
  • This is clear from Figure 1 (p 14). For the initial 40 positions, the percentage of reservation provided is less, and as we move close to 200 positions, the percentage of reservation increases, and reaches its highest level of 49.5% at 200th position. Interestingly this percentage of reservation will again start falling when the size of an institution increase over and above 200 positions, and will again reach its maximum of 49.5% on 400th position. In this way this cycle will keep repeating every 200 positions.

Government Policies On Reservation

  • If every second position is given to reserved categories in 200-point roster, as is being suggested by the authors, while keeping the internal sequence of reserved positions unchanged and giving 200th position to general category to maintain 49.5% reservation, this can serve two purposes; one, it can address the apprehension of the Allahabad High Court that the 200-point roster could result in some departments/subjects having all reserved candidates and some having only unreserved candidates; second, it will provide equal representations to reserved categories at both the head and tail end of the 200-point roster distribution. Figure 1 shows this distribution diagrammatically. A comparison of the two distribution shows that the modified 200-point line is smoother and reaches close to the equitable line of 50% from the very beginning, while the 200-point line starts reaching equitable line only after crossing 40 positions with a lot of fluctuations. It is worth mentioning here that high fluctuations are going only against reserved categories.

Denial of Reservation Is Not New

  • If we look at the history of implementation of reservation policy in DU (as well as in other central institutions), we find that there has always been some efforts to evade constitutionally mandated reservation irrespective of the political party in power. It is worth mentioning here that reservation for SC/ST and OBC was provided in all the central government jobs in 1950 and 1991 respectively, while it was implemented at DU in 1997 and 2007 respectively.
  • Even the late implementation of reservation policy came up with the faulty 13-point roster that gave abysmally low number of positions to the reserved categories. Even within these few reserved positions, appointments have been refused using the clause “none found suitable” (NFS), despite the fact that they fulfilled all required eligibility criteria laid down by UGC. Interestingly, this NFS clause was mostly used for the reserved categories, and rarely, if at all for general category positions. However, after judicial interventions, few frivolous decisions of NFS were reverted.

Government Policies On Reservation

  • There are other ways in which reservation is denied. The reservation policy was misinterpreted: though it was supposed to be given at all levels of recruitment where direct appointments were being made, it was provided only at the level of assistant professor, and denied at higher levels of teaching posts, that is, associate professor and professor. As a result, most of the teaching post advertisements had proportionately higher number of positions for associate professors and professors rather than that of assistant professors.
  • This denial of reservation for higher levels of teaching continued till 2007, when UGC instructed all institutions to give reservation at all levels of teaching positions. There again, OBCs were kept out of the loop and were deliberately restricted to the level of assistant professors without any substantial reason.
  • The manner in which reservations are denied, takes the form of rolling advertisements, where the number of posts reserved in any department is not earmarked. In the absence of clear mention of any reserved position, many applicants from the reserved categories hesitated to apply.
  • Since reserved positions were not mentioned in the advertisement, these institutions were free to allocate the reserved seats in any department after receiving the applications. In a conscious effort to evade reservation, they started giving reservation in only those departments where no application was received from any of the reserved categories. In fact, the idea was not to provide any reservation in a department where the applications from the reserved category were received. It was easy to do so, since the reserved positions were to be earmarked only after receiving the applications.

Representation of SC, ST and OBC

  • All such attempts at diluting the efficacy of implementation of reservation has resulted in a meager representation of reserved categories in all central universities. Table 2 shows that the representation of SC/ST/OBC in all central universities of the country in 2016–17, to be only 32% of all the teachers working as assistant professors, against 50% of constitutional provision.
  • One may think that lesser representation may be due to the reason that reservation for SC/ST and OBC was implemented in 1997 and 2007 respectively. However, the late implementation of reservation may not affect representation at the level of assistant professor since all those appointed as assistant professor before 2007 would already have been promoted to associate professor under Career Advancement Scheme (CAS).

  • If we look carefully, we find that this representation of deprived section was even poorer at higher levels of teaching positions, that is, associate professors and professors, where their combined representation was just 7.8% and 5.4% respectively. The combined representation of all the reserved categories at the level of associate professors and professors was just 7.8% and 5.4% respectively and is far less than that of the Muslims that was 15% and 15.9% respectively. It is worth mentioning here that some castes amongst the Muslims also fall under the category of OBC and ST. If we exclude that figure the representation of non-Muslim deprived sections would be far lesser.

Is the Apprehension Exaggerated?

The judgment of the Allahabad High Court was misread by the UGC while issuing the letter on 5 March 2018 to all educational institutions to advertise vacancies based on the earlier practice of calculating reserve positions based on 13-point roster. The Allahabad High Court, in its judgment, did not instruct the replacement of the 200-point roster with the 13-point roster; its objection was only limited to the present form of 200-point roster, which was resulting in an inequitable distribution of reserved and unreserved posts across departments. This problem could have been easily rectified by making small changes in the 200-point roster.

  • However, within a month of the receipt of the UGC letter, a large number of advertisements with new distribution of reserved posts, surfaced in the media. It was hard to believe that the preparation of the roster, which requires significant time in order to follow due process, that is, constitution of a committee, preparation of a new roster, taking approvals, advertising the vacancy, etc, were completed by most institutions within a period of one month.
  • The apprehension of the reserved categories is not baseless if we look at the advertisements of faculty positions, post UGC letter dated 5 March 2018, by various central universities. For instance, the advertisement of the Indira Gandhi National Tribal University (IGNTU) (Amarkantak) gives only one seat to SC/ST/OBC out of 53 seats (1%), while the Central University of Tamil Nadu has given only two seats out of 65 (6%). The Central University of Haryana (CUH) and Atal Bihari Vajpeyi Hindi Vishwavidyalaya (ABVHV) did not apportion any vacancy to any reserved category.Though the percentage of reservation given was somewhat higher in the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and Allahabad University, approximately 22.5% and 22% respectively, it was also far below the constitutionally mandated 49.5%. The varying percentage of reservation in various institutions was due to the difference in the date of establishment of these institutions as well as respective size of their departments.

Government Policies On Reservation

  • One can notice a high level of difference in the percentage of positions reserved in old institutions (BHU and Allahabad University) and new institutions (IGNTU, CUH, etc). This is due to the fact that the 13-point roster provides inter-temporal equity between the unreserved and reserved categories by providing present vacancies to unreserved categories while future vacancies were earmarked for the reserved categories (though not to the level mandated by the Constitution).However, there is a big disadvantage of intertemporal equity, especially when a new department is established, as mostly unreserved category candidates will be appointed and if the department is abolished later, reserved category will not get any chance to be appointed.

    Thus, we see that whether old or new, all institutions are witnessing drastic fall in the number of vacancies for reserved categories, and apprehensions of reserved categories are not unfounded. This was certainly not what was meant by the Allahabad High Court in its judgment.

Reservation In Higher Education India

Conclusions

Thus, we see that the reserved categories have always been misled, when it comes to being provided their share in the faculty positions. In principle, reserved categories can cross the 49.5% ceiling of reservation when their candidates find place in the merit of general category.

  • But, these reserved categories could never attain the constitutionally mandated 49.5% reservation in faculty appointments. In many other competitive examinations they could manage to get into the general category, but one can rarely see this phenomenon in the appointment of faculty.
  • This is the reason why we have meagre representation of reserved category candidates compared to their population proportion and earmarked proportions of reservation. There are many reasons for this noticeable change; first, the selection procedure for faculty appointment is completely subjective and based on interviews only.
  • Second, reserved category faculty are not found at higher levels, which can influence this very subjective appointment system. Third, reserved posts are calculated on the basis of faulty roster system to provide reservation. Fourth, there have always been attempts to evade reservation by many employing innovative methods.
  • It is high time that the present government, which is already being accused of being anti-reservation, take a stand and contest the case in the court in an honest and wholehearted manner. This is also a lesson for the reserved category applicants, not to accept any roster, whether the 13-point or 200-point, without first closely scrutinising its implications.Despite the 200-point roster being unjust to reserved categories, this was interpreted as being unjust to unreserved categories by the courts. Had there been every second position reserved in the 200-point roster, it would not have resulted in interdepartmental inequity in the distribution of reserved and unreserved posts, and the Allahabad High Court would not have put a stay on the 200-point roster.
  • Interestingly, since the initial departments in the 200-point roster are tilted in favour of unreserved posts, by the time Allahabad High Court stayed the practice, many initial departments had completed the appointment process. It was now the turn of those departments where the proportion of reserved categories was higher, to start appointment process when the Allahabad High Court put a ban on this roster. Does this not again indicate some sort of a pattern?

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