The University Grants Commission’s (UGC) recent draft guidelines suggests that reserved posts could be de reserved in “exceptional cases”.
The chapter states that while there is a general ban on the dereservation of reserved faculty vacancies in the case of direct recruitment, in exceptional circumstances, it can be done if a university can provide adequate justification.
In this context, direct recruitment means the process of appointing teachers by inviting applications after publicly advertising the posts.
Dereservation, on the other hand, means opening up faculty positions that were originally reserved for specific categories (SC, ST, OBC, EWS candidates) to applicants belonging to the general category if those positions remain vacant despite efforts to fill them.
The University Grants Commission already has guidelines for implementing reservations, issued in 2006.