Govt to introduce law on roster if Supreme Court rejects plea

The government on Monday said that it will bring a new ordinance for reservation process of faculties in varsities, if the Supreme Court rejects its review petition.

Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar said the above while responding to a supplementary during the Question Hour in the Lok Sabha. He said that the government can "bring an ordinance if its review petition filed in the top court is rejected".

The minister maintained that after the top court having rejected the special leave petition, the government will now file a review petition in the SC regarding the reservation procedure.

As per earlier practice, universities calculated all reserved seats considering the institution as one unit. However, the Allahabad High court in April 2017 ruled for department-based recruitment of faculty members in varsities.

This means that quota seats will be calculated on department-level instead of on the capacity of the institution as a whole, which in turn will lead to a reduction in number of seats for the reserved category. After the Allahabad HC first implemented it, the SC followed suit.

The University Grants Commission also announced in March last year that individual departments should be considered the prime base to calculate the number of seats reserved for SC, ST and OBCs after the Allahabad HC order.