New Delhi, Mar 5 (IANS): The government may introduce an ordinance soon to revive the university-wise recruitment system for faculty, an official from the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) said on Monday.

It was changed to department-wise in 2017 by an Allahabad High Court order, the official added.

A review petition filed by the HRD Ministry to revive the university-wise recruitment system was rejected by the Supreme Court on February 27.

"We have proposed to the cabinet to issue an ordinance in this regard. The government will take a decision on it," R. Subrahmanyam, Higher Education Secretary, HRD Ministry, told IANS.

He said the meeting is likely to take place in "two-three days" before the election model code of conduct comes into force.

The HRD Ministry was under duress from academic groups to have the Supreme Court revoke the Allahabad High Court decision and restore the university-as-a-unit method for faculty recruitment, applicable earlier.

Several groups of academics feel the department-wise recruitment will lead to undermining the hiring chances for SC/ST and OBC groups.

While the central universities are beset with large vacancies, the government, facing protests from several quarters against the change in the recruitment method, had last year put on hold any recruitment till the resolution of the issue.

According to the data IANS obtained from the HRD Ministry, the Delhi University and the Jawaharlal Nehru University have 47 per cent and 34 per cent vacancies, respectively.

The situation is worse at the central universities in Haryana, Allahabad and Himachal Pradesh where the vacancy is stated to be 76 per cent, 67 per cent and 60 per cent of the sanctioned strength, respectively.

The situation is even worse in Odisha, where 88 per cent faculty positions are vacant in central universities.