Chandigarh | Samvad Patar I Investigative Report
Punjab Government College Principal Postings Reform or Controversy
On International Women’s Day, the controversial postings of women principals in Punjab’s government colleges raise an uncomfortable question for the AAP government, whether a day meant for celebration has turned into a moment of institutional shame? Editor
When the Punjab government recently announced a wave of promotions, elevating long-serving government college professors to the coveted post of principal, it presented the move as a major reform in higher education. Official statements spoke of “revitalising” the system and strengthening leadership in colleges across the state. On paper, this was a long-overdue step. For years, a large share of government colleges in Punjab had functioned without regular principals, relying instead on ad hoc arrangements and additional charges. As of late 2024, nearly 40 per cent of the state’s government colleges reportedly lacked regular principals, undermining academic planning, discipline, and student welfare.
But behind the public announcements and celebratory social media posts lies a very different story—one in which promotions have, in several cases, become instruments of hardship, political favouritism, and bureaucratic insensitivity. Interviews with affected teachers, scrutiny of the state’s transfer policy, and examination of recent case histories reveal a disturbing pattern: the same system that claims to reward merit often punishes the vulnerable and bends over backwards for the well-connected.
“The same system that claims to reward merit often punishes the vulnerable and bends over backwards for the well-connected.”
Punjab Government College Principal Postings: A System Under Strain
Punjab’s higher education ecosystem has been under pressure for years. Chronic faculty shortages, delayed recruitments, and long-vacant leadership posts have drawn criticism from teachers’ bodies and education experts. The Department of Higher Education and the office of the Director Public Instructions (Colleges), or DPI (Colleges), play a central role in postings, promotions, and transfers. Policies exist on paper to provide transparent e-transfers and to give “hardship” relief to employees with serious medical conditions, disabilities, or difficult family circumstances.
The 2024–2026 period has been especially volatile. Large-scale recruitments of college teachers have been questioned in courts for being politically motivated, and some processes have been struck down or scrutinised for serving “narrow political gains” rather than the broader interest of education. At the same time, the state has publicised new principal postings as a big reform step, highlighting the appointment of principals to dozens of government colleges in one go. Within this larger churn, individual stories of newly promoted principals show how policy can be twisted by discretion—and how discretion, in turn, can be influenced by power.
Punjab Government College Principal Postings Case Study 1
Case 1: A 150-km daily commute as “reward”
Timeline
| Stage | Event |
| Promotion | Professor Shyam Sunder promoted (Physicaly Handicap: Blind) |
| Posting | Assigned distant college |
| Distance | 150 km daily commute |
| Impact | Disability hardship intensified |
Consider the case of Professor Shyam Sunder, a senior Political Science teacher who had been serving for decades at a Government College for Girls. By all accounts, he fits the profile of the experienced academic the government says it wants at the helm of institutions, and he has done so while living with complete blindness, navigating both his subject and his classroom without sight. His promotion to principal should have been a recognition of years of service and personal resilience.
Instead, the posting order that accompanied his promotion effectively turned that recognition into a punishment. He was assigned to a college that forces him into an approximately 150-kilometre daily commute three to four hours on the road every day, depending on the route and traffic. For a senior, blind academic expected to manage administration, mentor faculty, and travel safely between home and campus, such a commute is more than an inconvenience; it magnifies his disability-related challenges and raises serious questions about how sincerely the system honours its stated commitment to inclusion and accessibility for persons with disabilities
Punjab’s updated transfer and posting policies, including recent hardship-transfer guidelines, formally recognise long commuting distances and certain medical or family circumstances as grounds for special consideration. In practice, however, teachers like Shyam Sunder have little leverage. They are told that the posting is part of a “promotion package” and that they should be grateful for the elevation, even if it means a daily journey that would deter many younger professionals
The message is clear: the system can label a hardship as a privilege, and those without influence must quietly accept it.
“The system can label a hardship as a privilege, and those without influence must quietly accept it.”
Punjab Government College Principal Postings Case Study 2
Case 2: A polio-affected professor and a 125-km journey
Timeline
| Stage | Event |
| Promotion | Professor Romi Garg promoted (Handycap) |
| Posting | Sangrur |
| Distance | 125 km commute |
| Concern | Disability accommodation ignored |
If the first case highlights insensitivity, the second exposes something deeper: a system that turns a blind eye to disability even when its own policy framework claims to protect it. Professor Romi Garg, a science professor at Mahindra College, Patiala, has lived with the after-effects of childhood polio. Mobility is a daily challenge, and accessible postings are not a luxury for her, they are a necessity.
Yet when she received her promotion to principal, she, too, received what can only be described as a cruel gift: a posting to Sangrur, which requires her to undertake a daily commute of about 125 kilometres. For an able-bodied person this is tiring; for someone with a permanent disability, it is potentially disabling in itself.
This contradicts not only common sense but also the spirit of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, which requires governments to provide reasonable accommodation and avoid discriminatory practices in service conditions. Courts in the region have repeatedly examined transfer policies through the lens of disability rights and equal treatment, questioning arbitrary or differential treatment of disabled employees. Punjab’s own transfer rules explicitly list disability and serious illness as valid hardship grounds that merit special consideration and exemptions in postings.
Despite this, in Professor Garg’s case, those safeguards appear to have remained on paper. There is little indication that her disability was factored into the decision, that a hardship committee empathetically reviewed her case, or that alternatives closer to her existing station were seriously considered. The lived consequence is that a promotion, announced with fanfare by the government, may actually endanger her health and long-term career.
Punjab Government College Principal Postings Case Study 3
Case 3: Influence and a swift return to Mohali
Timeline
| Stage | Event |
| Promotion | Jaspreet Kaur Bains promoted |
| Posting | Tooran Mandi Gobindgarh |
| 20–25 days | Transfer reversed |
| Outcome | Returned to Mohali |
The next story reveals how rapidly the system can move when the right kind of pressure is applied. Professor Jaspreet Kaur Bains, a senior faculty member at Government College, Mohali, was promoted to principal and posted to JLN Government College, Tooran Mandi Gobindgarh. On paper, this is precisely how the system is supposed to work: a professor is elevated and given charge of an institution that needs a principal.
What happened next, however, raises awkward questions. Within barely 20–25 working days of joining Gobindgarh, her posting was reversed, and she was brought back to Government College, Mohali as principal. This unusually fast back-transfer stands in stark contrast to colleagues who have been pleading for months, even years, for relief on medical or family grounds.
The difference, allegedly insiders say, lies in power. Professor Bains’s husband is described as a senior, state-level officer in the Punjab government. In a bureaucracy where many decisions move at a glacial pace, a file connected to a powerful household can, evidently, travel at lightning speed. No public justification appears to have been offered for why her case warranted such urgent reconsideration when others in more distressing situations have remained unheard.
Teachers’ associations have long warned that discretionary postings and transfers, especially at the principal level, erode morale in the cadre. When faculty members see that hardship, disability, or near-retirement status do not earn them any special consideration, but proximity to power does, it hardens the belief that the system is rigged in favour of the well-connected.
“In a bureaucracy where many decisions move at a glacial pace, a file connected to a powerful household can travel at lightning speed.”
Punjab Government College Principal Postings Case Study 4
Case 4: A near-retirement professor sent far from home
Timeline
| Stage | Event |
| Promotion | Skinder Kaur promoted |
| Posting | Patiala → Kapurthala |
| Situation | Heart condition |
| Status | Relief pending |
Perhaps the most poignant case involves Professor Skinder Kaur, who has less than a year left before retirement. She carries multiple responsibilities: caring for her son and taking responsibility for an elder sister, all while managing her own long-standing heart condition. For a teacher in the twilight of her career, stability and proximity to medical support are not perks; they are fundamental to survival and dignity.
Yet her promotion came bundled with a transfer from Patiala to Kapurthala, a demanding route that effectively makes daily commuting impossible. The journey from Patiala to Kapurthala typically requires changes via Ludhiana and Jalandhar if undertaken by bus, turning a trip into a full-day exercise. Driving is not a viable option for a heart patient who, by her own account, cannot manage long hours behind the wheel.
Punjab’s transfer policy does list serious medical conditions as a valid category for compassionate consideration, subject to verification by a district medical board and final review by a departmental hardship committee. Employees whose applications are rejected can technically appeal within a specified period. In practice, however, this process can become a bureaucratic maze, especially for those without political or administrative backing.
According to information shared from the ground, Professor Skinder Kaur’s transfer order was issued on August 25. Seven months later, she has reportedly been making repeated representations, “knocking on doors” as she describes it, but with no relief. The contrast is striking: where some principals manage to get their inconvenient postings reversed in a matter of weeks, a seriously ill, near-retirement woman faculty member cannot even get a meaningful hearing.
The gender angle is important here. Women faculty often shoulder disproportionate caregiving responsibilities for children and elderly relatives. That reality is rarely reflected in transfer decisions, which treat all employees as if their personal circumstances were identical. When combined with health issues and a looming retirement, the refusal to consider relief appears not only unkind but also structurally discriminatory.
Punjab Government College Principal Postings Case Study 5
Case 5: A rapid homecoming for another well-connected principal
Timeline
| Stage | Event |
| August | Posted to Nabha |
| February | Reposted to Patiala |
| Trigger | Principal vacancy |
| Concern | Influence network |
The pattern of influence-assisted mobility appears again in the case of Professor Vanita Rani. In August, she was promoted and posted from Government Bikram College, Patiala to Government Ripudaman College, Nabha. For many principals, such transfers are part of the usual administrative reshuffle.
What stands out here is what followed. By February, barely six months after joining Nabha, she was re-posted back to Patiala. The timing was notable: the very day the principal’s post at the Government State College of Education in Patiala fell vacant, her transfer orders brought her back to the city. Behind this swift movement, colleagues point to the alleged role of her husband, reportedly serving in the same high state-level office where Professor Bains’s husband also works.
Nothing in Punjab’s official transfer framework openly authorises preferential treatment for spouses of senior officers. However, opacity in how files are processed, coupled with wide discretion vested in top officials, creates fertile ground for such outcomes. The broader impact is corrosive: it signals to the teaching community that postings are not governed by transparent criteria but by informal influence networks.
The impression that influences shapes principal postings in and around Patiala is further strengthened by another recent appointment: Professor Nishtha Tripathi, whose husband is an IAS officer, is now serving as principal of Government Mohindra College, Patiala, the same institution where she earlier worked as a professor. While the college itself is one of the state’s premier campuses with frequent leadership changes in recent years, the pattern in which spouses of senior civil servants are either shielded from difficult postings or quickly placed in preferred institutions reinforces the belief that informal power networks overshadow transparent, merit-based decision-making.
Punjab Government College Principal Postings Case Study 6
Case 6: A disabled professor and a two-kilometre “gift”
Timeline
| Stage | Event |
| Promotion | Dr Shavinder Singh Rikhi promoted (Disabled) |
| Posting | 2 km away |
| Link | Relative of IAS officer |
| Debate | Policy vs influence |
Perhaps the most paradoxical case involves Dr Shavinder Singh Rikhi, a disabled teacher who uses a car and is capable of driving independently. Formerly associated with Mahindra College and with work experience at the DPI office itself, he was promoted and posted as principal at a Government College for Girls just two kilometres from his existing station. On the surface, this appears to be a rare instance where a disabled academic receives a relatively convenient posting. Yet colleagues point out that Dr Rikhi is not just any disabled officer; he is the allegedly real maternal uncle of a serving IAS officer who currently holds charge as Deputy Commissioner, Patiala. In a system where many vulnerable teachers struggle for even basic hardship relief, the proximity of this convenient posting to his powerful family connection inevitably invites questions about whether formal policy or informal influence ultimately decided the outcome.
The college in question is a women’s institution with a girls’ hostel on campus. Both the principal and the bursar (the administrative officer responsible for hostel and financial matters) are men. Students and teachers have raised a crucial concern: in a girls’ college with a hostel, many of the most sensitive issues related to health, safety, harassment, privacy, and menstruation are deeply gendered. Expecting young women to comfortably share such concerns with an all-male leadership can be unrealistic. Even if some do step forward, there is a serious question as to whether male administrators, without lived experience of these issues, can respond with sufficient understanding.
Compounding the problem is the question of surveillance and privacy. The campus and hostel reportedly have CCTV cameras installed. Students and parents have a right to know who has access to this footage, under what safeguards, and with what oversight. In the absence of clear protocols and transparent accountability, the combination of an all-male administrative leadership, vulnerable female residents, and extensive camera surveillance raises serious red flags about privacy and potential misuse of authority.
These concerns are not abstract. The same college has previously been linked to major controversies, including alleged fraud involving the Chief Minister’s scholarship scheme during the tenure of an earlier principal. Such episodes underline the dangers of weak oversight and opaque administrative control in institutions that cater to young women from diverse and often vulnerable backgrounds.
Punjab Government College Principal Postings: Policy on Paper, Discretion in Practice
To understand how such divergent outcomes can coexist within a single system, it is important to look closely at the rules; especially the transfer and posting policies and how they are implemented.
Punjab’s recent hardship-transfer policies spell out categories eligible for “compassionate” or “hardship” consideration: employees with serious medical conditions, disabilities, and specified family circumstances can request postings that minimise travel and maximise access to care and support. Cases are meant to be routed through district hardship committees, medical boards (for health-related claims), and finally departmental hardship committees, with an appeal mechanism in place.
In principle, this framework should protect people like Professor Romi Garg and Professor Sikandar Kaur. It should also offer a fair and systematic method to address hardship without relying on personal connections. Yet actual outcomes suggest that implementation is inconsistent and discretionary. Some files move rapidly, especially when linked to influential families. Others languish for months, even when backed by medical evidence and nearing retirement.
Courts in the region have repeatedly had to step in to scrutinise transfer policies and their application, especially when they appear to discriminate among disabled staff or deviate from the statutory protections under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016. In the education sector more broadly, higher judiciary has criticised state-level recruitment and posting processes when they seem driven more by politics than by the genuine interests of students and institutions.
Punjab Government College Principal Postings and a Broader Pattern of Ad Hocism
These individual stories do not exist in a vacuum. They are part of a larger picture of ad hoc governance in higher education. For years, a significant portion of Punjab’s government colleges have had no regular principals, with the additional charge of leadership handed to existing principals elsewhere. A current example is JLN Government College, Tooran Mandi Gobindgarh, which has been functioning without a principal; the Drawing and Disbursing Officer (DDO), Madam Kusum Lata, has reportedly been on medical leave for more than two months, leaving the college in a state of prolonged administrative limbo. Such arrangements deepen uncertainty for staff and students and show how fragile institutional governance can become when leadership posts remain vacant or poorly backed up.
Teachers’ associations have argued that low principal salaries relative to senior professors, bureaucratic interference in academic matters, and the posting of non-academics as DPI (Colleges) have further weakened institutional leadership. When, after such prolonged neglect, the state finally begins to fill principal posts, the process is ripe for both hopeful expectations and bitter disappointments.
The experiences described above indicate that while some principals have been placed where they can serve effectively, others have been sent into situations where distance, disability, or family responsibilities will likely undermine both their well-being and their ability to lead. At the same time, a small but visible group seems able to secure rapid corrections to inconvenient postings by virtue of personal influence.
Punjab Government College Principal Postings: What Needs to Change
To understand why such apparently inconsistent and influence laden outcomes keep recurring, many teachers quietly point to a deeper structural problem: the concentration of real power over postings in the political and advisory ecosystem around the Chief Minister rather than in professional educational institutions. While the current Director-level leadership in higher education and the DPI (Colleges) are formally responsible for implementing transfer and posting policy, several of the controversial decisions described by faculty are widely perceived to have been shaped elsewhere by advisers in the Chief Minister’s Office, the official party spokesperson and general secretary, the minister for education, and the secretary, higher education. In this telling, the DPI appears less as an independent, empowered administrator and more as an official carrying out a design crafted above his head, which leaves him looking helpless in the eyes of affected principals and staff.
If Punjab’s government is serious about strengthening its higher education system not just in speeches but in lived reality, it will have to confront these uncomfortable questions head on. That means not only enforcing hardship and disability provisions, making gender sensitive appointments, and increasing transparency, but also ensuring that key administrative posts like DPI (Colleges) and Director, Higher Education are allowed to function independently of partisan pressure. Without that, even the best worded policies will continue to be overridden by informal instructions routed through the CMO and party hierarchy.
For now, the gap between the rhetoric of “revitalising higher education” and the lived experiences of newly promoted principals remains stark. Until that gap is closed, every new list of principal postings will be greeted not only with hope, but also with fear, fear that a promotion might come, as it did for so many in these stories, bundled with punishment.
