Small Cadres and the L-Shaped Roster

Seven and a half per cent of thirteen posts is 0.975. Ignore the fraction, as the rules require, and the Scheduled Tribes get nothing — not because of any policy decision but because the arithmetic runs out. That is the problem the L-shaped roster exists to solve, and it is also the reason the size of the unit matters so much that it reached Parliament in 2019.

Where the ordinary roster stops working

Reserved posts are computed as cadre strength multiplied by the percentage, with fractions ignored. That works cleanly in a cadre of a hundred. In a cadre of nine it produces 1.35 SC posts, 0.675 ST posts and 2.43 OBC posts — one, none and two after truncation.

A category that never reaches a whole post in a small cadre would never be represented in it at all, no matter how many recruitment cycles passed. DoPT therefore prescribes a separate roster for cadre strengths up to 13 posts, at Annexure-III to the Office Memorandum of 2 July 1997, and at the corresponding annexure to the EWS Office Memorandum of 2019.

How the L is read

The DoPT note describes the method directly: for cadres of 2 to 13 posts the roster is read from entry 1 under the cadre strength column down to the last post, and then horizontally till the last entry in the horizontal row — i.e. like 'L'.

Down the vertical arm gives you the initial earmarking. Every post in the cadre is earmarked for the category shown under initial recruitment, and the first filling of each post is by that category.

Along the horizontal arm gives you the replacements. Once the cadre is filled, a vacancy arising against any post is filled by rotation as shown horizontally against the last post of the cadre.

Structurally the L-shaped roster is nothing more elaborate than the first fourteen points of the main roster. The vertical arm reproduces points 1 to 13 and the horizontal arm carries you through point 14, which is the first ST point. That is precisely how a small cadre eventually acquires ST representation: not through a permanently earmarked post, but through the rotation on the horizontal arm.

For direct recruitment the vertical arm places OBC at 4, 8 and 12, SC at 7, EWS at 10 and ST at 14. For promotion the same 14-point roster has only two reserved points — SC at 7 and ST at 14 — and everything else is unreserved, because there is no OBC or EWS reservation in promotion.

A note on the name

DoPT titles the annexure by reference to cadre strength up to 13 posts. Internally the roster is usually called the 14-point roster or the L-shaped roster, because it runs to point 14.

"13-point roster" is popular shorthand that entered general use during the teaching-posts controversy of 2018 and 2019. It is not a DoPT term, and — more importantly — the controversy it comes from was not about this roster at all.

What the 13-point roster argument was actually about

The question in that dispute was the unit of reservation for teaching posts in central educational institutions: is it the university, or is it each department within the university?

The University Grants Commission had treated the institution as the unit, which meant a faculty of two hundred posts ran on the 200-point roster. In Vivekanand Tiwari v. Union of India the Allahabad High Court held in April 2017 that the department is the unit, and the UGC implemented that by circular in March 2018. The Supreme Court declined to interfere in January 2019.

The consequence was arithmetic, and severe. Splitting a faculty of two hundred posts into nine departments of around thirteen posts each means every department falls into the small-cadre bracket, where 7.5 per cent truncates to zero. Reported effects included the loss of over a hundred ST posts at a single university.

Parliament reversed it. The Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers' Cadre) Act, 2019, preceded by an Ordinance in March 2019, restored the institution as the unit of reservation. The episode is worth remembering as the clearest available demonstration that in reservation, the definition of the unit can matter more than the percentage.

Practical points for a small cadre

Check the cadre boundary carefully. Whether a group of posts is one cadre of twenty or two cadres of ten is a question with real consequences, and it is answered by the recruitment rules, not by convenience. Do not run a small cadre on the first 13 points of the 200-point roster as though it were a fragment of it. The initial earmarking is the same, but the replacement behaviour is not — the horizontal arm is what makes the small-cadre roster work, and a fragment of the main roster has no horizontal arm. Recast when the cadre crosses 13. A cadre that grows from 13 posts to 15 moves out of the small-cadre roster and onto the main one, and must be recast accordingly.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q1. At what cadre strength does the L-shaped roster apply?

Cadre strengths from 2 up to 13 posts. From 14 posts upward the main model roster applies, read from point 1 down to the cadre strength.

Q2. Why is it called L-shaped?

Because of how it is read: down the vertical column to the cadre strength for the initial earmarking of posts, then horizontally along that row for successive replacements. Down and then across traces an L.

Q3. Is the 13-point roster the same as the L-shaped roster?

Not really. The L-shaped roster is DoPT's instrument for cadres of up to 13 posts, and is more accurately called the 14-point roster. The phrase 13-point roster comes from the 2018-19 dispute about whether the department or the institution is the unit of reservation for teaching posts, which is a different question. That dispute was settled by the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers' Cadre) Act, 2019, restoring the institution as the unit.

Q4. How does a cadre of nine posts ever get ST representation?

Through the horizontal arm. The vertical arm earmarks the nine posts, none of which is ST because the arithmetic does not reach one. As vacancies arise and replacements are made by rotation along the horizontal arm, the roster progresses towards point 14, which is the first ST point.