JNUTA condemns suspension of four SAU faculty members

New Delhi: The Jawaharlal Nehru Teachers Association and the Federation of Central University Teachers have strongly condemned the arbitrary suspension of four faculty members by the South Asian University administration.

The four professors who were suspended are Snehasish Bhattacharya (Faculty of Economics), Srinivas Burra (Faculty of Legal Studies), Irfanullah Farooqui and Ravi Kumar (Faculty of Social Sciences).

According to the statement issued by the Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers’ Association (JNUTA), “The suspension notice issued to the faculty by the SAU administration on June 16, 2023, came after a spate of humiliation of the four faculty members by the fact-finding committee (FFC) that on May 19, 2023, asked them to provide handwritten answers to over a hundred questions sitting in front of the committee members. The faculty raised objections to this process and wrote to the FFC and the SAU administration, but they received no reply”.

The JNUTA strongly condemns this unprecedented harassment, coercion, and intimidation of the SAU faculty by the administration. The suspension order served to four faculty members by the SAU administration is an attempt to intimidate and silence the faculty and the students who raise their voices against the arbitrary and authoritarian actions of the administration.

Students have been protesting since October 2020 for an increase in their stipend for master’s students from Rs 5,000 to Rs 7,000 a month and the support for PhD students from Rs 25,000 to Rs 31,500 a month. The teacher association said that the notice of suspension by the university put the students under immense stress both mentally and physically. The order of suspension given to the professors of the four faculties is an attempt to intimidate and silence the faculty and students who have raised their voice against the arbitrary and authoritarian actions of the university administration.