The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved an ordinance on the reservation mechanism for university teachers during its last meeting before the general elections.

Various students' and teachers' organisations had been urging the government to bring an ordinance to restore the 200-point roster taking college or university as a unit for reservation in teaching posts.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) had announced last March that an individual department should be considered as the base unit to calculate the number of teaching posts to be reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) candidates, following an order by the Allahabad High Court in April 2017.

The Supreme Court had last month dismissed a review petition filed by the HRD Ministry after its special leave petition against the court order was rejected by the apex court.