– Mita Mukherjee

The Bengal Assembly on Thursday passed the West Bengal Universities and Colleges (Administration and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2026 that will allow the state government to transfer teaching and non-teaching staff across all 31 state universities. At the special session of the Assembly, the bill was passed by 171 to 15 votes.

After introducing the bill, chief minister Suvendu Adhikari made it clear that the provisions of the bill can be applied if any teacher or staff “uttered” any word that is “anti-national” or makes any statement that is not in tune with “national culture”.

“Those using anti-national words can face transfer as punishment,” Adhikari said after the bill’s introduction.

The state government’s announcement about tabling and passing of the inter-university teacher transfer bill had triggered an apprehension among a large section of university teachers that the bill could be used as a tool to punish teachers who oppose government policies which the chief minister confirmed.

Several teachers of Jadavpur University (JU), where teachers’ association had been traditionally dominated by Left-leaning teachers, had feared that the bill would be particularly “misused” to punish Jadavpur University.

The chief minister asserted that the provisions of the bill will be applied as punitive measures for erring teachers.

He said he wouldn’t care if someone called it “misuse of power” and the government will go to any extent to weed out Naxalism from the campus of Jadavpur University.

“You may be aware that we recently made a punishment transfer of SDPO (sub-divisional police officer) of Farakka (in North Bengal) after the murder of Sujit Mandal. The same way this Act will be applied in universities,” Adhikari said.

“If you call this misuse of power, do so and keep doing it. We don’t care. We have come to power with a two-thirds majority. We will keep growing in strength. You will get to see many more such steps. We will do whatever we feel is necessary for the state’s good… Those who don’t like the bill are free to quit and shout “workers of the world, unite”……We know what is the medicine for all those who indulge in brainwashing Jadavpur University students. We have all the details of whatever is happening there…” the chief minister said.

He said a similar system is practised in many other states like UP, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Kerala. Once the Act comes into effect, the government will enjoy the power to transfer teachers from one state university to another.

According to the chief minister, the inter-university transfer of teachers will address shortage of teachers and there is nothing to worry about the job security of transferred employees and teachers.

“Many of the new universities set up by the previous Mamata Banerjee government do not have proper infrastructure and very few teachers. There is no harm if experienced teachers from one university share their expertise in a new university,” the chief minister said.

Tarun Kanti Naskar, a retired JU professor and a member of state secretariat of SUCI (Communist) said, “The new legislation will take away the autonomy of all the universities. We must understand that there is a difference between government department offices and universities. This bill will make the university structure the same as government offices. It will not be possible to impart quality education if universities function like government offices.”

Gautam Maity, general secretary of All Bengal University Teachers’ Association said the inter-university transfer of teacher system will undermine the autonomy and academic freedom of universities.

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