DU teachers misinformed about varsity stand on promotions

New Delhi, Sep 1: Facing flak over the retrospective implementation of Career Advancement Scheme (CAS), Delhi University authorities today said teachers are misinformed about the varsity's stand on the issue of their promotions.

DU's Executive Council had a passed a resolution on August 14, as per which all cases of promotions with eligibility on or after December 31, 2008, were brought under the new eligibility conditions outlined in the CAS of 2010.

The decision has been attracting criticism from Delhi University Teachers' Association (DUTA), citing it to be an 'anti-employee' move by the varsity.

DU authorities, however, said the move isn't deliberate and the varsity has tried to raise the issue with UGC several times.

"Since promotions of a few hundred teachers of DU had remained stuck in view of the UGC directive despite repeated requests by the university, not to introduce new regulations retrospectively, DU was left with no other alternative but to bring this matter before the EC to reconsider the position taken by it earlier," DU's Media Coordinator and Joint Dean of Student's Welfare, Malay Neerav said.

UGC wrote to the DU Registrar on February 19, 2010, saying till such time as the revised regulations based on the Sixth central pay commission for promotion and recruitment of teachers and CAS are published in the Gazette of India, varsities may go ahead with promotions under CAS as per earlier rules.

Once the new regulations were notified, UGC directed the varsity to proceed with Point Based Assessment System (PBAS), in view of the difficulties in collecting retrospective information. Vice Chancellor Dinesh Singh had written to MHRD requesting the varsity be allowed to use its own performance criteria in lieu of Academic Performance based Indicators (API) based promotion and recruitment.

Following the communication, UGC decided to constitute a committee to revisit the regulations and the varsity adopted 2010 regulations under which the API based PBAS would be prospectively rolled out.

The move, was objected by the UGC observer, following which Registrar Alka Sharma wrote to UGC in February this year, explaining the circumstances in which new regulations could not be followed since they could not have been implemented retrospectively.

The UGC did not agree with the points raised by the Registrar and asked the varsity in April this year, to follow new regulations of 2010 "in toto" and adhere to it under any circumstances.

"The varsity, was however, left with no option but to accept the change in the cut-off date for eligibility of teachers for promotions as mandated by the UGC," Neerav said. "DU has also decided to post all the correspondence with UGC in respect with the issue, on its website, in order to clarify its stand on the issue," he added.

PTI