"Merit is not the sole right of the power classes," says Dr Dasoju Sravan. A spokesperson for the Indian National Congress in Telangana, Prof Sravan has been waging a long battle to throw light on the lack of representation for the Other Backward Classes category at the English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU) in Hyderabad.
In July 2019, EFLU released a notification for the recruitment of Professors, Associate Professors and Assistant Professors across 52 vacancies. The varsity then issued a notification in 2020, which increased the number of vacancies available from 52 to 58. However, the reservations for OBC candidates were set at two each for the post of Professor and Associate Professor and four for the post of Assistant Professor. This fell well short of the required reservation of five posts for Professors and seven posts for Associate Professors. At the time of the notification, EFLU had no representation for the OBC category among its list of Professors and Associate Professors.
In January 2021, Dr Sravan filed a complaint against the EFLU administration before the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC), with the claim that they were violating the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers' Cadre) Act, 2019 (CEI Act) that guaranteed reservation for candidates from the marginalised classes in central universities. The Ministry of Human Resources and Development had then allotted a 27 per cent reservation for the OBC Category in direct recruitment out of the sanctioned strength of faculty in the varsity under this Act and the complaint to the NCBC claimed that EFLU had violated this notification as well.
The NCBC issued a notice to EFLU for a hearing and EFLU, in its response, said that the posts that had been sanctioned for reservation were already filled before the reservation was implemented. EFLU only had 25 OBC candidates for the post of Assistant Professor out of the sanctioned 146 and zero OBC Professors or Associate Professors. The NCBC directed a stay on the recruitment process under the notification issued by EFLU.
However, in February 2021, EFLU challenged the NCBC's orders claiming that they were beyond the body's jurisdiction. "Justice Naveen Rao was hearing the case initially and he realised that the notification was in violation of the CEI Act and, therefore, passing orders against the NCBC's directions wouldn't be appropriate. He asked EFLU to explain why such a notification had been issued in the first place. EFLU then withdrew its petition, only to file a fresh one a few days later, before a different judge this time, Justice Hima Kohli. The judge then stayed the NCBC's orders and allowed EFLU to conduct the interviews for recruitment. In subsequent hearings, Justice Hima Kohli was replaced by Justice Ramchandra Rao and concluded that the NCBC does not have the authority to stay the recruitment process. The judge also allowed EFLU to release the results for the appointment of lecturers under its notification and issue appointment orders to selected candidates.
This order was challenged in the Supreme Court via a Special Leave Petition filed by Dr Sravan in December 2021 and notices were subsequently issued to EFLU, the NCBC and the Union Ministry of Social Justice on March 25, 2022. "Justice, in this case, should have happened automatically, but we were made to run from pillar to post," says Dr Sravan, and blames the "arrogance" of the EFLU administration for failing to rectify its error. He says that the petition should come up for hearing some time in the month of May.
When asked to comment on the notice issued by the Supreme Court, the Vice-Chancellor of EFLU, Prof Suresh Kumar said, “I have great respect for all the Hon’ble Courts of Law. We abide by what the Hon’ble Courts direct us to do. As far as I know, there are no directions or interim orders from the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the matter concerning recruitment at EFLU.”
Kiran Kumar, a student at the University of Hyderabad and the National President of the All India Other Backward Classes Students Association (AIOBCSA), shares that the problem of lack of representation is not peculiar to EFLU. "The issue lies with lack of transparency. The UGC has issued multiple notifications asking educational institutions to make rosters for the recruitment process, detailing the reserved seats, making the rosters available in the public domain and conducting recruitment, accordingly. However, universities like EFLU, and even UoH, where the High Court had to step in to ensure that the roster system is being followed, continue to violate these terms," he says.
The AIOBCSA is planning on impleading in the petition in the Supreme Court in order to throw light on how other universities are also violating the reservation requirements for the OBC and other reserved categories. In August 2021, the Ministry of Education had shared with the Parliament that 55 per cent of the OBC posts were lying vacant in central universities. In the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, which ranked at the top of the National Institutions Ranking Framework (NIRF) for universities that year, a disheartening 89.8 per cent of the reserved positions for the OBC candidates remained vacant.
"Social profiles of all faculty and people higher-up in the administration must be made available. That's how the disparity will be laid bare and we can understand how the caste system is still prevalent in the education system in India. There should be a social justice cell in the Ministry of Education to ensure that these positions are being filled," adds Kiran.
