University of Hyderabad notifies 76 reserved teaching posts after NCBC warning

NEW DELHI: The University of Hyderabad has called for applications for 76 reserved teaching posts following a direction by the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC). The university vacancy notification, released on May 5, came after repeated protests from students and faculty, and letters from the NCBC which found that the university was not following the reservation policy.

The NCBC had earlier noted that the university did not fill the reservation roster for non-teaching staff and had even filled the posts with unreserved candidates. It also had noted that the university had swapped earmarked teaching posts and thereby kept no clear data on the number of reserved candidates and their seniority.

The University of Hyderabad has come under repeated scrutiny over the past few years for not following the reservation policy. It is now recruiting for posts reserved for posts reserved for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes (SC, ST, OBC).

OBC Quota Appointments: Protests, hearings

Members of the All India OBC Students Association (AIOBCSA), in 2020, had organised protests against the vice-chancellor, accusing him of “committing fraud against OBCs” by allegedly denying and violating reservation policy and “personally targeting students, non-teaching staff, and teaching faculty”.

In November 2020, NCBC had conducted a public hearing with students, teachers and non-teaching faculty as they received several complaints about discrimination in admissions, reserved posts going vacant, violation of reservation policies in the University of Hyderabad.

The NCBC even sent a letter to the university on December 12, 2020, asking for it to upload the reservation roster on the website within 15 days. However, according to the minutes of the meeting of the NCBC, the university did not heed this directive.

In September 2021, the NCBC again wrote to the UoH VC asking him to follow the directives of the commission. In January 2022, AIOBCSA again wrote a letter to the NCBC asking it to conduct an enquiry into why the directives were not followed.