New Delhi: On 31 December, 2019—just hours before his retirement—Virendra Kumar Tewari, a professor in the agricultural and food engineering department at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, was appointed the director of one of the oldest IITs.
Tewari—who assumed the role in January 2020—was 65 years old at the time, the standard retirement age for regular faculty members at IITs. In fact, the Union Ministry of Education (formerly the Ministry of Human Resource Development)’s official notice for the director’s position specified that applicants should ideally be under 60 years of age as on the application deadline.
“The reasons for his appointment remain unclear, especially given that he exceeded the preferred age limit and was not even a professor in a core engineering discipline,” a retired faculty member from the institute, who did not wish to be named, said to ThePrint. “It raised many questions when someone from the agricultural and food engineering department, well past the retirement age, was appointed the director of one of the oldest IITs. He surpassed two other candidates, including the then IIT Kharagpur director Partha Chakrabarti and Rajeev Ahuja, who was a professor of computational materials science at Uppsala University, Sweden.”
Tewari was chosen by former education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal, with his name being forwarded to the Rashtrapathi Bhawan for final approval.
Born 1 January, 1955, in Rasra village of Uttar Pradesh’s Ballia district, Tewari completed his B Tech and M Tech by 1981, followed by a PhD from IIT Kharagpur by 1985. He has been serving as a faculty member at the institute ever since.
As Tewari’s term as director of IIT Kharagpur nears its end in January 2025, tensions between the administration and faculty have reached boiling point. The faculty is protesting against the administration’s decision to issue show cause notices to 86 faculty members who signed a petition calling for the withdrawal of disciplinary action against members of the teachers’ association.
In September, the IIT Kharagpur Teachers’ Association (IITTA) had accused Tewari of “nepotism” and “arbitrary faculty recruitment” in a letter to the education ministry. They called for a successor with a strong academic record and inclusive governance.
In response, the administration issued show cause notices to IITTA office bearers and initiated disciplinary action when they did not reply within 7 days. Faculty members then petitioned to revoke the actions, but the administration retaliated by issuing notices to 86 signatories and replacing three department heads.
A senior official in the administration told ThePrint that 20 faculty members who were signatories submitted their apology letters Friday which is condoned by the authority. “The rest responded to the show cause notice which seems to have been considered by the competent authority,” the official said.
Faculty members are considering legal options, including seeking a stay on the removal of department heads. “This is unprecedented. Never before in IIT Kharagpur’s history has the administration taken such an arbitrary stance against the faculty,” a senior faculty member told ThePrint on the condition of anonymity.
The faculty member, however, added that Tewari has no direct political affiliation. “He attempted to recruit individuals with RSS connections during his tenure, though he did not directly engage in any RSS-related activities.”
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Past controversies
In 2010, a report by Hindustan Times revealed that IIT Kharagpur had a discretionary quota that allowed children of faculty members to be admitted without having to clear the highly competitive JEE Advanced. Tewari’s son was among those who gained admission through this quota, which was later abolished.
In 2022, a 23-year-old mechanical engineering student from Assam’s Tinsukia district was found dead in a hostel room at the institute. When the incident had occurred, both IIT Kharagpur and Kharagpur Town Police had informed the students’ parents that he had committed “suicide”. Moreover, the institute’s fact-finding report informed the Calcutta High Court that he suffered from “mental health issues”.
According to an RTI response received by activist Dheeraj Singh, who is also an alumnus and founder of the Global IIT Alumni Support Group, as many as 115 students of the IITs have died by suicide since 2005, and of them 13 were from IIT Kharagpur.
The incident triggered massive protests at the campus with students also demanding Tewari’s resignation.
Then, in January 2023, Justice Rajasekhar Mantha of Calcutta High Court accused IIT Kharagpur authorities of “trying to cover up” the death of a student who had allegedly been ragged by some seniors. He asked Tewari, “Do you have children of your own? If you do, you will understand the pain of a father whose child dies while studying in a premier institute like IIT Kharagpur.”
Later in 2024, a second forensic report revealed that the student was stabbed and shot at. The matter is still subjudice.
“He was severely rebuked in court for covering up the alleged murder of a student,” the retired faculty member quoted above said.
‘An unapproachable administrator who propagates nepotism’
According to both former and current faculty members, Tewari, during the entirety of his tenure, has remained largely unapproachable and failed to engage in meaningful dialogue with faculty on the issues they face.
“He doesn’t respond to anything. It’s a one-way flow,” a former member of the teachers’ association told ThePrint.
“During his tenure, the association has sent him numerous letters addressing various concerns, but there has been no response. Engaging in any dialogue with him has proven to be extremely difficult,” they added.
Elaborating on allegations of “nepotism” and “arbitrary faculty recruitment”, a senior faculty member, who did not wish to be named, said, “A person from his department has rapidly risen from professor to head of department, board of governors member, dean, and now deputy director. This blatant favouritism has become the talk of the campus, especially since more qualified and senior faculty members have been repeatedly overlooked in favor of one individual.”
Adding, “Moreover, key administrative appointments such as deans, department heads and committee chairs have been made arbitrarily, in violation of the institute’s rules and statutes. When the teachers’ association tried to raise this with the director, there was literally no response from his side,” the faculty member further alleged.
Faculty members described him as someone who dominated meetings by focusing solely on himself. “He would go on at length about his foreign trips and, in the process, belittle his colleagues,” said another faculty member, who also requested anonymity.
ThePrint reached Tewari via phone calls, email and text message for a comment on these allegations. This report will be updated if and when a response is received.
Stricter rules for faculty, students
Shortly after taking charge in June 2020, Tewari’s administration at IIT Kharagpur issued a notice prohibiting employees from speaking to the media, even anonymously, citing the institute’s conduct rules. The internal communication stated that some of the employees were causing “embarrassment” to the institute by talking to the press.
“It is not just the media. He made life difficult for faculty. Even for giving lectures and attending seminars, we were supposed to take special permission. It was not like that before,” a senior faculty member, who requested anonymity, told ThePrint.
In April this year, the institute announced that students caught drinking on or off campus will face fines. A first time offence will incur a fine of Rs 5,000, and a second time offence Rs 10,000. In both cases, the student’s parents will be notified. Repeated offences will be referred to the disciplinary committee (DC) for further action.
“The administration’s decision to impose penalties for off-campus alcohol consumption raises important questions about the limits of their authority, especially since a significant portion of the student body are adults. This move reflects the authoritarian nature of the current administration,” a final-year student told ThePrint.
(Edited by Radifah Kabir)
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