new delhi there is something not quite right with the faculty or at least the additional teaching staff appointed to tide over the vacancies in delhi universitys chemistry department many of them are retired teachers and some are phd students designated as teaching assistants a post no longer accepted in the university many of the teachers hired have claimed not to have received appointment lettersgiven the faculty shortage the university asked the chemistry department to appoint 13 assistant professors on adhoc basis but department head ramesh chandra named retired teachers faculty from the department of science and technology inspire and phd students for these posts in july some faculty members also allege that these additional teachers did not go through the proper selection procedures or judged on their competency to teach msc studentsn k kaushik who retired from the chemistry department around 10 years ago is yet to report to work he told toi i was indeed approached to teach in the department but was never given any appointment letter i had also told the hod that my eyesight was weak and i was slated for a surgeryram saran formerly of hindu college had a similar tale i did not receive any communication to join as a teacher i am not sure why my name is being included as a teacher without my consent both kaushik and saran are included in the semester timetableanother teacher taught one class in august and went on a monthandhalflong foreign tour faculty members also alleged that a dst inspire professor suveen kumar was hired despite never having chemistry as his core subject in msc or phd kumar responded that chemistry isnt my core subject but the paper i am teaching is something i have expertise intwo phd students have also been appointed as teaching assistants we were asked to aid the teachers when they conduct practicals said ravi tomar one of the two chandra claimed there was no violation of norms and this convention of getting students to assist the teachers twice a week as per rules has been going on for yearswhen asked about the manner in which the adhoc posts were filled chandra said the retired teachers and those from dst inspire are better than some of the ad hocs available chandra it may be remembered has been accused of sexual harassment by an adhoc teacher and he noted this when he told toi ad hocs can be controversial so i have chosen experienced teachers he said the shortage of teachers had arisen after five of his permanent faculty refused to teach this semester about which he had complained to the universitychandra also claimed that appointees who were not attending classes had been removed from the timetable many positive changes have come in the past few years and we have never compromised with the students studies he insisted