Three professors at IIT Kharagpur, who were among the 85 who signed a letter protesting the showcause notice served on four office-bearers of the institute’s teachers’ association, have been replaced as the heads of their departments and research facilities.

The three teachers are Adritji Goswami, Niloy Ganguly and Nihar Ranjan Jana.

Goswami was the head of the mathematics department, Ganguly headed the department of artificial intelligence and Jana was the chairperson of the central research facility (life science division).

They were among the signatories to the mass representation to the registrar which demanded that the November 12 showcause notice be withdrawn.

The November 27 mass representation also demanded that the disciplinary proceedings against the four office-bearers for failing to reply to the showcause notice be stopped.

The registrar, Amit Jain, issued separate notices informing the three that they have been replaced as heads by other teachers.

The notices were sent a day after the IIT authorities issued a statement accusing a section of teachers of propagating a “collective hateful purpose” and “disrupting the normal academic workflow of the institution” in the name of protests.

A member of the teachers’ association said the head of a department or a central research facility usually holds the position for three years.

“None of the three professors who have been replaced as heads has completed three years. The administration penalised them for signing the mass representation. The order was made public hours before the teachers’ association held a march on the campus on Wednesday evening protesting the authorities’ high-handedness,” said a professor who took part in the march.

More than 100 teachers joined the silent march carrying posters with messages such as “Say No to Autocracy” and “Withdraw Showcause” written on them.

The IIT authorities had on November 29 showcaused the 85 teachers on the ground that their mass representation violated the institute’s conduct rules.

The teachers had on September 20 written to the Union education ministry accusing the institute authorities of nepotism and arbitrary faculty recruitment.

Calls and text messages from this newspaper to the IIT director, V.K. Tiwari, and the registrar went unanswered.

The director met the office-bearers of the IIT teachers’ association on Monday and asked them to reply to the November 12 showcause notice by December 13.

The earlier deadline was November 19.

He rejected the demand that the showcause notice be withdrawn.