SFI Impact: Parliamentary Committee To Act In Reservation Violations In Central Educational Institutes

In reaction to the concerns raised by the Students’ Federation of India, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Welfare of Scheduled Castes & Scheduled Tribes which met recently on 24 June 2021 has taken up the issue of violation of reservation norms in central educational institutions seriously, and has decided to meet the administrative heads of these institutions.

SFI have been taking up the issue of the continuing violation of the provisions of the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admissions) Act, 2006 and the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers’ Cadre) Act, 2019 at the Central Educational Institutions (CEI). These are the violations at the IITs, IIMs, IISc, IISERs, NITs, IIITs etc. As a continuation of this, the SFI have given letters regarding the issue to Shri. Su Venkitesan (MP, Lok Sabha & member of the Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports) on 21 June 2021, and to Shri. K Somaprasad (MP, Rajya Sabha & member of the Standing Committee on the Welfare of Scheduled Castes & Scheduled Tribes) on 24 June 2021.

Earlier, The poor implementation of CEI Act, 2006 in PhD was brought into the notice of the Central Education Minister during December 2019, through a memorandum from SFI and through a special mention in the Rajya Sabha by Shri. T K Rangarajan, then Rajya Sabha MP. Later, the SFI all India leaders also met the Central Education Minister, Shri. Ramesh Pokhrial, along with Shri. K K Ragesh, then Rajya Sabha M.P, in December 2019, and brought the several issues of violation of reservations into his attention. In March 2020, the admission figures provided by the Central Education Minister, in reply for the questions raised in the Rajya Sabha, by Shri. Elamaram Kareem MP and Shri. K Somaprasad MP, clearly provided the picture of blatant violations of the reservations in the IIT. This along with the continuous pressurization from the SFI and others forced the government to form a committee, headed by the Director of IIT Delhi, in August 2020. The aim of the committee was to look into implementation of Reservations in IITs. Disappointingly, the committee failed to identify the gravity of the issue, rather it suggested the exception for IITs from faculty reservation. The SFI rejected the anti-student proposals and stood by the interest of the students from the downtrodden sections, as it always was. The SFI organized continuous national campaigns and protests as well. In March 2021, according to the UGC data collected through RTI, it was found that the majority positions reserved for the SC/ST/OBC/PwD categories were lying vacant at forty central universities as well.

” This repeated violations of reservation have to be curbed. We came to know that, in light of the continuous approach by the SFI, the Parliamentary standing committee on the Welfare of SC & ST which met recently has understood the gravity of the issue, and have decided to meet with the representatives of the administrations of the CEIs. We welcome this move and expect a pro-student approach as well as favourable decisions from the committee. Meanwhile, the struggle for the downtrodden sections has to be continued in the campuses as well as in the streets. We sees this as a moment of victory. The Central Executive Committee of the SFI congratulates the student community who have stood for the rights of the weaker sections, and took part in the various campaigns, struggles and protests taken up by the SFI with regard to this issue” said SFI General Secretary Mayukh Biswas, and SFI All India President V. P. Sanu in a press statement.

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