The government has allowed four teachers of the erstwhile Presidency College to continue teaching at Presidency University - a move that has prompted a few teachers to accuse the government of taking arbitrary decisions.

Last year, the higher education department had transferred five teachers of Presidency College who had qualified to teach at Presidency University to government colleges when they sought to be released from the West Bengal Education Service.

The year before that a teacher and the registrar had been transferred.

The department has to release these teachers from the Bengal education service to enable them to teach at Presidency University.

At least 27 more such applications are pending with the department.

The four teachers who can continue teaching at Presidency University since they have been released are: Nilanjan Dasgupta, the controller of Presidency examinations, Gandhi Kar, dean of science, Madhubrata Choudhury, head of biological sciences, and Suhrita Saha, head of the sociology department.

Presidency registrar Debojyoti Konar said he was still to get an official communication about the four teachers.

"I am happy that the four have been allowed to continue at Presidency but I fail to understand why we were not granted the release," said Bhaskar Gupta, one of the teachers transferred to a government college last year.

"We had sought the release on similar grounds, but I don't know why the department decided otherwise. I hope others don't have to face a similar situation."

Another teacher who did not want to be named said: "Getting released from the education service depends on the whims of the government. The department is arbitrary in its approach."

Anik Chatterjee, head of the political science department, Debapriya Bhattacharyya, head of the Bengali department, and Gour Gopal Ray, head of the mathematics department, were among the others transferred last year.

Between July and September 2014, the government had transferred registrar Prabir Dasgupta and another teacher.

Presidency College used to recruit teachers from the Bengal education service. When the College Street institution was upgraded to a university, 40 teachers opted to work there. The government had ruled that college teachers willing to take up a job at the university would be selected based on interviews.

A teacher who had been transferred said the government permission should have been a "mere formality" when they sought to be released from the education service, following confirmation at the university. "The government had told us that we could continue teaching at the university if we were selected."

In 2013, the higher education department had released four Presidency College teachers from the education service, following confirmation.

The next year, the government removed former registrar Dasgupta, who had been the most vocal against campus vandalism by people carrying Trinamul flags in 2013, from the post and transferred him to a government college as associate professor.

Dasgupta, who had been a geology teacher at Presidency College for over a decade, had become the registrar in 2012.

Within months of Dasgupta's transfer, Harendranath Bhattacharya, a geology professor who wanted to quit the education service, was asked to join Durgapur Government College, barely a month before his retirement.

Bhattacharya had been a general secretary of the CPM-led Government College Teachers' Association in the past.

Presidency VC Anuradha Lohia had sent a letter to the higher education secretary in November last year, requesting that 31 teachers be released from the education service at the earliest.