Kolkata, Dec 6 The faculty member of the Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur might move the Calcutta High Court against the decision of the authorities to serve show-cause notices to 86 professors of the institute, Indian Institute of Technology Teachers’ Association (IITTA) sources said.
The decision comes amid several members of this iconic institute of the country holding a sit-in-protest against the show-cause notice as well as the decision to replace three departmental heads within the institute in the last two days.
IITTA insiders claimed that the sit-in protest might also be followed by a hunger strike by some of the protesting faculty members of IIT-Kharagpur.
The protesting faculty members have already sought the intervention of the Chairman of the Board of Governors in the matter.
The show-cause notice was issued following a letter from the association to Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan in September this year, where the faculty members of IIT-Kharagpur accused the institute Director V.K. Tiwari of "favouritism and vindictiveness" in faculty selection.
In the petition, the faculty members also requested the Union minister to ensure the appointment of a new Director after Tiwari’s tenure ends in January next year.
The show-cause notice was served after that and the replacement of the three departmental heads followed. These include Niloy Ganguly of the artificial intelligence (AI) department, Adrijit Goswami from mathematics and Nihar Ranjan Jana, who was the chairperson of the central research facility (life science division) of the institute. They were among the faculty members who were served with show-cause notices.
The IIT authorities, however, had dismissed the allegations raised by the faculty members and described them as "disruptive propaganda". The authorities also claimed that the allegations labelled by a section of the faculty member lacked credibility.
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