A group of JNU faculty members on Tuesday ended a 24-hour hunger strike on campus, held in protest against "delay and uncertainty" over promotions that they feel is demoralising teachers and harming the academic atmosphere.

Of the 693 faculty members at JNU, 128 or 18 per cent are eligible for promotion but the university administration has been sitting over their applications for up to five years without explanation, the JNU Teachers Association says.

It has alleged discrimination, saying teachers who have criticised the administration’s functioning are being victimised while some 52 others have been promoted during this five-year period.

About a dozen faculty members launched the hunger strike on Monday.

The delays in promotions are "demotivating" the teachers, to whom JNU owes its reputation for quality education and research, said Surajit Mazumdar, a professor at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, JNU.

He said the usual way the administration delays promotions is by pushing the files from one desk to another and failing to set up the selection committees that would interview the applicants.

Mazumdar said some faculty members who were eligible for promotion had applied as far back as 2019, but the university was yet to set up the selection committees.

"Nobody knows at what stage their application is pending. I feel the process has been made opaque to perpetuate discrimination and arbitrariness in promotions," he said.

Under the University Grants Commission’s regulations, which JNU follows, every professor, associate professor and assistant professor is allowed to supervise eight, six and four PhD students, respectively. Therefore, the delays in promotions are also costing JNU in the matter of PhD admission, Mazumdar said.

He said that while the UGC rules say a faculty member should be promoted from the date of eligibility, some have been promoted from a later date.

Teachers’ association president Moushumi Basu said 82 associate professors at JNU were eligible for promotion to professor as they had completed three years in their present position, and 46 assistant professors were eligible for promotion to associate professor, having completed the required 12 years.

Some 35 of the 46 have more than 15 years’ experience in their current position, which means they might have become professors by now had the promotions been granted in proper time, she said.

An email was sent to vice-chancellor Santishree Pandit for her comments on the delay and uncertainty over promotions. Her response is awaited.