Centre alerts ministries and departments on reservation in direct recruitment

NEW DELHI: Centre has alerted the ministries and government departments on reservation rules in direct recruitment of professionals. Government has asked the ministries and central government departments to follow the reservation procedure in direct recruitment of officials. This has been done after complaints of ignoring the reservation procedure in the direct recruitment of officials. Department of personnel and training has said that the reserve category candidates who are selected on the general category standards will not be adjusted under reserved vacancies.

Reservation in government jobs for SCST and OBC candidates has always been a sensitive issue for the government. Moreover, there have been reports and complaints of not following the reservation rules in direct recruitment of professionals in some government departments.

Officials of the department of personnel and training (DoPT) said that a letter has been written to the union ministries and departments reiterating the instructions relating to application of own merit in direct recruitment for appointment reserved category candidates.

“As per instructions issued vide this department, in direct recruitment to the Central government jobs and services, the reserved category candidates who are selected on the same standard as applied to general candidates will not be adjusted against reserved vacancies,” said the letter issued early this month.

As per early instructions of the DoPT, only when a relaxed standard is applied in screening a reserved candidate, for example in the age limit, experience, qualification, permitted number of chances in written examination, etc such candidates will be counted against reserved vacancies.

Officials said that the matter was brought to the notice of the department by the parliamentary committee on welfare of OBCs that these instructions are not being followed in some cases in direct recruitment to Central government jobs and services.

The DoPT letter has said that all the ministries and departments should keep these instructions in view for proper compliance.

There are defined guidelines on reservation in direct recruitment in government departments. It says that if sufficient number of candidates belonging to SC/ST/OBC are not available to fill up the vacancies reserved for them in direct recruitment, the vacancies should not be filled by candidates not belonging to these communities. In other words, there is a ban on de-reservation of vacancies reserved for SCs, STs and OBCs in direct recruitment.

The DoPT guidelines also mentions that if sufficient number of suitable SC/ST/OBC candidates are not available to fill up vacancies reserved for them in the first attempt of recruitment, a second attempt should be made for recruiting suitable candidates belonging to the concerned category in the same recruitment year or as early as possible before the next recruitment year to fill up these vacancies. If the required number of SC/ST/OBC candidates are not even then available, the vacancies which could not be filled up shall remain unfilled until the next recruitment year. These vacancies will be treated as “backlog” vacancies.