This has been ‘due to absence of a governing body in several DU colleges’.
NEW DELHI: Following non-reservation of vacant posts for Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) categories at St Stephen’s College and Mata Sundari College for Women, the Delhi University Teacher’s Forum filed a complaint this week. There are 28 colleges under the Delhi government, out of which around 12 colleges are running temporarily or with the help of Officers on Special Duty (OSD).
A letter was also sent to the authorities over the vacancy of numerous posts in colleges affiliated to DU having no governing bodies for the last nine months. Talking to The Sunday Guardian, Hansraj Suman, DU professor and former member of Academic Council, said: “Due to the absence of a governing body, several colleges under Delhi University have failed to implement the reservation policy for appointment of Assistant professors.”
He also said that though recruitment notification for the Assistant Professors’ posts in various departments was released, there was no mention of “reservation” in the notified post, which is a gross violation of the reservation policy laid down by the Central government.
The list of colleges with vacancies for Principal’s post include Sri Aurobindo College, Motilal Nehru College, Bhagat Singh College, Satyavati College, Rajdhani College, Vivekananda College, Swami Shraddhanand College, Bharti College, Gargi College, Maitreyi College, Indra Gandhi Physical Education & Sports Sciences, Shyama Prasad Mukherji College for Women (Girls) and Sister Nivedita College.
“A notice was given to the universities stating that the said posts be filled by March 2020, but no action has been taken yet,” Suman added.
According to the guidelines and notifications under implementation of reservation policy of the government, Clause 6(c) reads, “In case reservation for SC/ST, all the Universities, Deemed to be Universities, Colleges and other Grant-in-Aid Institutions and Centres shall prepare the roster system keeping the Department/Subject as a unit for all levels of teachers as applicable.”
On the other hand, Clause 8(a)(v) clearly mentions, “The roster, department-wise, shall be applied to the total number of posts in each of the categories [(e.g.) Professor, Associate Professor, Assistant Professor] within the Department/Subject.”
Some of the faculty members said that it was observed that many SC/ST candidates who had been teaching as ad hoc staff for DU for a long time were called unsuitable whenever a permanent position was available.
K.P Singh, Associate professor of Delhi University, told The Sunday Guardian: “The Constitution provides 15% reservation for SC, 7.5 for ST and 27% for OBC and it is mandatory to follow the reservation rule for making any appointment. But DU does not follow any such rule and along with that the backlog and shortfall, seats still remain empty.”
Singh also said that no principal had been appointed so far in 77 Delhi University colleges, where this rule should have been followed.
“At present, openings for new positions in colleges take place in an arbitrary manner. Only if an influential person puts pressure, then seats from the reserved categories are released as per convenience; whereas in other cases only advertisements for general categories are released.”
Citing that there is no paucity of qualified candidates, the committee on welfare of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in a report submitted to the Lok Sabha last year had mentioned that out of the total endorsed strength of 264 professors as on April 2015, Delhi University had only three such teachers in its colleges, while there was no ST representation at this level. Of the 271 Associate Professor posts, there were only one ST and seven SC teachers.