The West Bengal government has moved to consider taking over the authority to fix pension and gratuity from state universities after a report by the finance department flagging irregularities in how pensions and gratuities of teachers and teaching staff were being determined.
The proposal, however, has drawn criticism from teachers and university staff, who have accused the state government of trying to undermine and curtail the autonomy of universities.
For now, the plan to take direct control of pension and gratuity matters has not been fully withdrawn. Officials believe that alleged misconduct by universities has strengthened the state’s position. According to higher education department officials, discrepancies have increased over the past two-and-a-half to three years, particularly during the tenure of acting vice-chancellors across 31 state universities.
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Full pension granted with insufficient years of service
The departments of Higher Education and Finance have identified three major categories of irregularities in pension, gratuity, and other retirement benefits. In several cases, university teachers have been granted full pension and gratuity after only 13–14 years of service, despite government rules requiring a minimum of 20 years for full pension eligibility.
In some instances, pensions were sanctioned even when employees had served for less than 10 years. Officials at Vikas Bhavan said prolonged vacancies or delays in appointing finance, audit, and accounts officers in universities had weakened oversight. As a result, individuals who are not permanent employees, who lack PF account numbers, or do not have properly maintained service books from the date of joining are reportedly receiving regular and family pensions.
Allegations of nepotism and impact of Supreme Court ruling
Allegations of nepotism have also emerged in connection with the pensions of senior professors. It has been claimed that additional pension amounts were granted at the time of retirement without clear justification. When these irregularities were flagged during scrutiny, university syndicates and working committees are reported to have passed resolutions that prevented recovery of the excess payments.
To justify this approach, a verdict passed by the Supreme Court has been cited. In which the Supreme Court bars recovery of excess payments from retired employees and allows only pension re-fixation. As a result, the state continues to bear an annual financial burden running into crores of rupees in pension and gratuity payments.
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An official at Vikas Bhavan said that on August 2, 2024, Calcutta University’s syndicate formed a committee to examine pension overpayments involving 17 teachers and officials. However, citing the Supreme Court ruling, the syndicate re-fixed pensions without recovering excess amounts, effectively halting recovery proceedings.
Scrutiny of pension claims across multiple universities revealed that the trend of full pension after 13–14 years of service is more prevalent in 12–13 older universities among the 31 universities of the state. Officials said these findings have been communicated to the finance department.
Debabrata Das, secretary of the university branch of WBCUTA, said, "There is no bottom line to the deception on the part of the higher education department. The allegations they are making should be made public."
Teachers and academics at Rabindra Bharati University have been protesting since January 9, demanding that pension-related matters remain under university control. On January 19 and 20, professors and academics from Presidency University and Jadavpur University also signalled the start of a movement.
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Meanwhile, a section of permanent vice-chancellors said any errors could be addressed through audits or investigations and that curtailing university autonomy in retirement benefits may not be appropriate. While these objections have temporarily slowed the state’s move, officials at Vikas Bhavan maintain that corrective action is necessary and that the irregularities cannot be ignored.
