SC notice to Centre, IITs on petition seeking implementation of reservation policy

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 24

The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notices to the Centre and IITs on a petition seeking directions to them to follow reservation policy in admission in research degree programmes as also recruitment of faculty members.

A Bench led by Justice LN Rao asked the Centre and IITs to respond to the petition filed by SN Pandey after his counsel Ashwani Kumar Dubey submitted that the IITs were not following the reservation policy.

“The respondents (IITs) are completely violating the reservation policies that provide for reservation to socially and marginalised communities belonging to the SC (15%), ST 17%) and OBCs (27%)’, the petitioner submitted.

The petitioner also urged the top court to issue necessary directives for creation of a mechanism for resolving the students/scholars and research harassment complaints and to set up a panel of technical experts to review the performance of existing faculty members.

Pandey demanded cancellation of the appointment of certain appointments due to violation of reservation norms and framing of a transparent recruitment policy.

“It is submitted that the process of taking admissions in the research programme and appointment of faculty members by the respondents (IITs) are completely unconstitutional, illegal and arbitrary. The respondents are not following the guidelines of reservation as per the constitutional mandate,” Pandey submitted in his petition.

The IITs were not following the transparent process of recruiting the faculty members which opens up the window for non-deserving and candidates to enter IITs through connections that increases the chances of corruption, favouritism and discrimination, affecting internal ranking and technological growth of the country, he alleged.