A day after it was promulgated, Ordinance on SC/ST faculty quota in Universities challenged in SC

A day after the Central Education Institutions (Reservation in Teachers’ Cadre) Ordinance 2019 was promulgated, its validity has been challenged in the Supreme Court..The Ordinance reverses the effect of the Supreme Court’s judgment that had upheld the ruling of the Allahabad High Court on the issue of reservation for the Scheduled Caste (SCs) and Scheduled Tribe (STs) candidates in teaching posts..Background.The Allahabad High Court judgment had laid down that while granting reservation for teaching posts in higher education, the University shall not be treated as one unit for carving out reserved posts. Instead, every department shall be treated as a singular unit and reservations granted in each department based on the number of posts..The old system was one of 200 point roster wherein an institute was treated as a unit in itself. However, the Court, while doing away with this system, reasoned that this system could lead to some departments getting all the reservations while other departments getting only unreserved candidates. This unequal distribution is against the Constitutional provisions under Articles 14 and 16, it was held..The Allahabad High Court thus brought in the department wise roster and reservation system in April 2017. Nearly a year after the judgment, in March 2018, the University Grants Commission (UGC) notified the amendment to its guidelines in this regard..However, the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry moved the Supreme Court shortly after against the Allahabad High Court’s judgment but the petition was dismissed and the decision of the High Court was upheld..The Instant petition.The petitioners, Prithviraj Chauhan and Priya Sharma have now moved the Supreme Court in the wake of the promulgation of the Ordinance. It is the case of the petitioners that the judgment of the Courts was “progressive” and fair and “liberally interpreted”. The protest against the judgment, the petitioners claim, was by political groups in order to gain mileage ahead of elections..Bringing in an Ordinance to nullify the effect of a Supreme Court judgment is “unethical”, the petition states adding that it “violates the spirit of the Constitution”..“The three pillars of democracy are legislature, executive, and judiciary, however, the present government is undermining the Judiciary by overturning the judgment of this Hon’ble court without any discussion and debate. It happened second time within the period of nine months.”.The old system, which the Ordinance aims to bring back, violates fundamental rights and an Ordinance is subject to limitations of the abridgment of fundamental rights, the petitioners add..The petitioners have thus, sought for the Ordinance to be struck down as being ultra vires Articles 14, 16, and 21 of the Constitution of India and have also sought a stay on its implementation..Bar & Bench is available on WhatsApp. For real-time updates on stories, Click here to subscribe to our WhatsApp.