JNUTA refutes university claim of highest promotions, calls for protest on November 17

NEW DELHI: The JNUTA has refuted the Jawaharlal Nehru University administration's claim of approving 108 promotions -- the highest in its history -- under Vice-Chancellor Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit and announced a protest on November 17 to press for pending promotions.

In a statement, the Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers' Association (JNUTA) alleged that the administration did not reveal the number of promotions still pending and the years after which the select promotions were made. "The official JNU Twitter (X) account recently posted a celebratory message stating that 108 promotions of faculty have taken place till October 18, 2023, during the tenure of the current vice-chancellor … Reality, however, is not captured by merely the numbers quoted in the tweet," the statement issued on Thursday said.

"We could actually have moved closer to understanding the reality if the administration had also provided the numbers of those still pending and the number of years each of the promotions has been kept pending," it added. The association claimed that 125 associate professors are due for promotions to professors. Of these, just 37 were promoted in the past two years. It added that more than 70 per cent of the associate professors are still waiting for their professorship. Several of these promotions have been pending since 2016.

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The teachers' body further claimed that at least 47 faculty members who had completed the 12 years of service required to be eligible to become associate professors in 2022 are still waiting for their promotions. The number of these pending promotions is four to five times greater than the 15 promotions actually done if appointments after 2010 are taken into consideration, the statement said. For the 200-odd assistant professors who had promotions due for more than one stage, the university has processed only 56 cases, the teachers' body claimed.

The university administration on October 31 announced that it had cleared the promotions of 108 faculty members in less than two years under the tenure of Pandit. "JNU Vice-Chancellor Prof Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit has cleared and promoted 108 faculty in less than two years, the highest in JNU history," a post on the university's official handle on X had said. The JNUTA has also called for collective agitation on campus by faculty members to register their demand to clear the pending promotions.