Srinagar- Depressed classes and minorities in India are spades of electoral politics. They continue to feel vulnerabilities at both levels of the power apparatus. The suicidal case of Rohith Vemula (SC) the unpowered student of PhD (2016), at the University of Hyderabad and Chander Shekhar (SC), an associate professor of psychology at Jammu University (2022) the empowered one are just two victims to understand it more lucidly. Data on seat denying to SC/STs in IITs and other institutions or dropping them out from the same institutions is another example of institutional vulnerabilities and insecurities for depressed classes.

But there is another level of exclusiveness in Kashmir University, that is, to not advertise or give reservation seats to depressed classes by the ratio which is prescribed by the concerned National Commission, like (UGC in this case) Or shrink the space for the subjects of that State in reserved quota by allowing other states' subjects to apply in their place is a clear dictation and Otherization against the SC/ST candidates in state-level recruitments.

So, technically, here is denial for their own as well as violation of domicile rules of state categories that deny to other states subjects to apply in reserved quota. Recent Haryana Assistant Professor recruitment, UP PCS recruitment and others are just for reference.

Kashmir University's discriminatory appointment policy; the old and quite beautiful campus of Kashmir University smells casteist and corruptionist taste by not advertising or giving less than proportional to the total number of seats for the reserved categories for the time being. It has never given the due right of SC/STs of her own state.

Before 2019, it never gave the reservation to SC/STs in Assistant Professor recruitments. But by now, it has changed the old wine in a new bottle. In the recent recruitment procedure under different departments of the University though had been given the seats to the categories but on the price of their state-level depressed classes of reserved categories and that is a clear violation as well as discrimination against the SC/ST candidates of the domicile of Jammu and Kashmir.

According to Article 16 parts 3 & 4 of Fundamental Rights and Article 309 of the Indian constitution states that state-level recruitments are legally and morally bound to make it the exclusive right of their state subjects of depressed classes. State level recruitments shouldn't give to an outsider in reserved categories of that state like PSCs and other states' Universities. This is practically also true in state-level recruitments of other states like Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and others.

Kashmir University did it in a very smart manner as recruitment in higher education nowadays does happen. They neither mentioned in the recruitment policy notification that the outside of Jammu and Kashmir in reserved categories are eligible nor did they display names with full addresses of the candidates from which state and category one has been called for interview. On the day of the reserved categories candidates’ interview, domicile reserved categories candidates got to know that people of different Indian states/UTs like Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Ladakh were called for interview.

This is not simply the thing of “Jugaad” recruitment but an open yet hideous violation of domicile rules, appointment regulations and fundamental rights under Article 16 of the Indian constitution. Who is unaware of the so-called recruitment procedure in higher education of India, especially in Central and State Universities where meritorious are systematically pushed back and replaced with those who have good “Jugaad” links with the recruiting agency as well as the governing regime? Meritorious and without “Jugaad” are teaching as contractual and guest faculty on less than labor wages in Jammu and Kashmir without getting any financial security during the period of disengagement. Their screams for the last decade are unheard and yet to be continued till the undefined period.

In India, the pattern of exam scams and subsequently delaying in their investigation and conduction is a common phenomenon of nowadays. Similarly, here too candidates will have to knock on the door of the honourable court for justice which will derail the selection process and drag down the institutional credibility as well a huge impact on the candidate’s career owing to this delayed vicious cycle of appointments.

The Supreme Court of India (SC) has ruled on several cases of scams in higher education recruitment. For example, the West Bengal Teacher Recruitment Scam 2016. The SC has ordered fresh examinations, investigations, and the return of fraudulently earned salaries. After finding irregularities with the OMR sheets. And said there are too many flaws in the selection of candidates. The bench said tainted candidates can be divided into different categories – ineligible, those whose ranks were manipulated to bring them into the selection list, those whose marks were manipulated to make them leapfrog over meritorious candidates, manipulation of OMR (some of which were blank), and those not on the merit list getting appointed. While enumerating the alleged flaws in the recruitment process, which was advertised in 2016 while appointments were made in Jan 2019, CJI Khanna in a lighter vein asked,” Dal mein kuch kala hai ya sab kuch kala hai?”

The UGC-framed Guidelines for the Recruitment of Assistant Professors in Colleges and Universities are disdained by most Universities like KU while making recruitment of Assistant Professors. For the time being, the recruitment of Assistant Professors has become a big scam and a major source of corruption for the Governing Bodies of these Universities. Because, the Guidelines of the UGC for recruitment of Assistant Professors are very Vague, and whatever we have are not followed by the Universities while conducting the recruitment of Assistant Professors.

In the time of wrinkling and shrinking of job opportunities in higher education and open “Jugaad”  system in the recruitment of Central and State Universities, the discriminatory and corruptionist policies of Kashmir University against the depressed SC/ST and minorities are unbearable and arbitrations that have questioned the very procedure, institutional reliability and transparency of higher education which will lead to significant physiological impact on candidates as well as the procedure of selections. A long way to equality has to break the glass ceiling.

The Author is a Research Scholar of Modern Indian History at AMU and belongs to Surankote, Poonch J&K.