New Delhi: The Indian Institute of Management (IIMs), contesting a Centre’s direction for providing reservations in faculty positions, are believed to have requested the Ministry of Human Resource and Development to declare them as ‘institutions of excellence’.
Under the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers’ Cadre) Act 2019, institutes enjoying institute of excellence status are exempted from reserving faculty positions for SC, ST, OBC and EWS.
The IIMs have collectively approached the Ministry in this regard last week, said an Indian Express report on Wednesday.
The report said that 20 of the premier business schools are currently not offering 15 per cent of the teaching posts for SCs, 7.5 per cent for STs, 27 per cent for OBCs and 10 per cent for the EWS.
The IIMs had all this while cited a circular of the Department of Personnel from implementing the centre’s reservation policy on the grounds that their teaching positions were technical in nature and hence exempted from providing reservations. However, the Ministry in November last year issued a fresh circular saying it supersedes all other previous orders and hence the B-schools are obliged to follow the reservation policy.
As per estimates, 90 per cent of the existing faculty positions in the IIMs are filled with teachers from the general category.
According to the Indian Express report, IIMs are of the view their case will be heard on merit as there are institutes of excellence who are exempted from the reservation policy.
Some of these institutes are Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, National Brain Research Centre, North-Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Science, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Physical Research Laboratory, Space Physics Laboratory, Indian Institute of Remote Sensing and Homi Bhabha National Institute.