New Delhi, June 15: Over two dozen Jawaharlal Nehru University teachers from disadvantaged social backgrounds have spoken out against the varsity's decision to introduce uniform qualifying marks for all sections for admission to MPhil and PhD courses, calling the move constitutionally untenable.

The 25 teachers, all of them from Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes or Other Backward Classes, wrote to vice-chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar yesterday asking him to bring back the system of differential qualifying marks as it used to be till last year.

"It is kindly submitted that the qualifying marks may be implemented as per differential qualifying marks for the deprived sections (like) the SC/ST/OBC candidates as per the Constitutional provisions," said the letter signed by the teachers.

According to the admission procedure announced by JNU, every student, irrespective of their social background, will have to score at least 50 per cent in the entrance exam to qualify for the viva voce, or the interview.

JNU authorities have defended the decision citing the new admission policy framed by the University Grants Commission. The varsity had adopted the UGC (Minimum Standards and Procedure for Award of MPhil/PhD Degrees) Regulations, 2016, in January this year as its admission norms for research programmes.

The UGC policy says the university has to hold an entrance test, whose score shall be used as qualifier for the viva voce with "qualifying marks as 50 per cent". The policy seeks to make a candidate's performance in the viva voce the sole determinant for admission.

Till last year, the qualifying mark in the entrance test was 40 per cent for general category students, 35 per cent for OBCs and 30 per cent for SC/ST students.

If they qualified, the weightage formula that was followed was 70 per cent for the entrance test and 30 per cent for the interview.

Professor Y.S. Alone, one of those who signed the letter to the VC, said students from deprived sections of the society were entitled to relaxation under the government's reservation policy of 27 per cent for OBCs, 15 per cent for Scheduled Castes and 7.5 per cent for Scheduled Tribes.

JNU registrar Pramod Kumar said the UGC rule was "binding on" the varsity. "The UGC rule says 50 per cent qualifying marks. We will stick to it," Kumar said.

A senior UGC official said the higher education regulator had prescribed the minimum qualifying score. But the university could factor in its affirmative policy by adopting varying qualifying marks.

What he meant was JNU could introduce higher cut-offs for general and OBC students while keeping the qualifying marks at 50 per cent for SC/ST candidates.

Another complication that has arisen is also related to the reservation policy. As the UGC regulation has limited the number of PhD and MPhil students a teacher can guide, the total number of research seats in JNU has been drastically reduced from over a thousand last year to fewer than 200 this year. Some of the varsity's centres offer very few seats, making it difficult to implement the reservation policy.

The faculty members have demanded that the administration specify the number of seats in each centre to be reserved for students from the deprived segments of society.

JNU has also scrapped its deprivation point system, a unique affirmative policy that gave weightage to students from backward areas and marginalised sections for admission to MPhil and PhD courses.

JNU's new admission norms have been challenged in Delhi High Court by a member of the CPM's student wing SFI. A single-judge bench had ruled that the UGC regulation was binding on the university. The matter is now pending before a division bench.