The Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) was founded in 1931 by Professor Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (PCM), the father of statistics in India, and registered as a Society in 1932 with its headquarters in Kolkata.Under PCM’s leadership, ISI made landmark contributions to statistics, mathematics, economics and computer science. Large-scale survey sampling was developed here, leading to the creation of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO). Stalwarts such as C.R. Rao, R.R. Bahadur, R.C. Bose, S.N. Roy and J.K. Ghosh reshaped mathematical statistics. ISI pioneered electronic computers in India.Parliament recognised these contributions through the ISI Act of 1959, declaring ISI an Institution of National Importance and enabling the launch of the now-celebrated BStat (Hons) and MStat programmes. A Bill introduced in the Lok Sabha on August 3, 2026 seeks to repeal this Act.Did any ISI Review Committee ask for the repeal and abolition of the society?Under the 1959 Act, the activities of ISI are periodically reviewed by a committee constituted by the government. The Fourth Review Committee (RC4) was notified in January 2020. The Statement of Objects and Reasons of the 2026 Bill invokes this Committee’s Report to justify legal reform. The RC4’s Terms of Reference mandated it to consider the 1959 Act and the Memorandum of Association. The Committee examined the Act but did not recommend its repeal. It recommended only two amendments: widening the subjects in which ISI may award degrees and reforming its audit arrangements.The Bill converts ISI from a registered Society into a statutory body corporate. The Report suggested nothing of the kind. It proposed a smaller Council while retaining the Society and recommending two elected Society representatives on the Council. None of the four Review Committees recommended abolition of the Society; rather, they recommended strengthening it. Yet a leading national business daily, Business Standard, quoted the Secretary, Union Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, on August 5, describing the purpose of the Bill as ending the sway of the Society.Was there a meeting?The same daily quoted the Secretary about a July 2025 meeting with about 40 experts as part of the pre-legislative consultative process. No such process is mentioned in the tabled or draft versions of the Bill. On December 24, 2025, following protests against the drafts, MoSPI published a FAQ referring to the July 2025 brainstorming session. On the same day, however, MoSPI, meeting in response to an RTI query, denied having any information about the July 2025 meeting. In a later RTI response, MoSPI failed to provide an agenda or proceedings of the meeting. The Secretary may resolve these contradictions; Parliament should not legislate on the strength of an undocumented “pre-legislative” meeting.Is the 1959 Act inadequate or is the Society killing the institute?The Bill’s Statement of Objects and Reasons blames the 1959 Act for limited provisions on governance, administration, finance and accountability, and for an inability to address an evolving academic environment. Yet the Act has allowed ISI to flourish for more than 65 years. It also proved adaptable enough to permit a major structural transformation in 1976 following the First Review Committee, achieved through an able institutional leadership and a sympathetic ministry. ISI never had to contend with caustic public accusations from a Secretary, nor a Chairman who failed to attend any meeting of the Council for over ten months.The Society holds only three seats in the 33-member Council, with no veto power. Its President chairs only the first Council meeting, at which the Chairman is elected. MoSPI’s own representative on the Council failed to cite a single instance of obstruction by the Society. The Society has cooperated with every major measure for the Institute’s betterment, including the 1976 governance overhaul and the 1995 amendment to the Act. It has been a facilitator, not a hindrance. Nor is a statutory body corporate a prerequisite for excellence: the Indian Institute of Science operates as a charitable trust.Is this a bureaucratic takeover?The Secretary invoked discussions in a meeting – about which his own ministry failed to provide any documented information – as a reason for introducing the Bill, while the Fourth Review Committee sought neither the Society’s dissolution nor repeal of the Act. With the reasons offered for introducing the Bill failing scrutiny, the bureaucracy becomes a natural suspect. Draft versions of the Bill defined “Central Government” as the administrative ministry. Although this formulation was dropped from the tabled version, it raised concerns about bureaucratic intent.The Bill also tightens bureaucratic influence over the Board of Governors by replacing the Dean of Studies with another administrative ministry bureaucrat. The Central Government recommends the Visitor on the Chairman’s nomination, places two of its officers on the Board, frames the rules for nominating four eminent persons (the news report suggests that the rule-framing is already done even before the Bill being passed), and has a veto over the Director’s appointment. The Regulations for nomination of the remaining three members require prior government approval. The same pattern appears in appointments, regulation-making and institutional review in a departure from the present practice.The story of autonomous centres and missing headquartersThe Bill does not guarantee a Management Council (MC) to every centre; the matter is left to the Board’s discretion. This is particularly concerning because MoSPI’s failure to raise faculty strength or fund infrastructure has left several centres too small to have an MC. The centres in Chennai and Tezpur are likely to suffer, with no alternative plan in the Bill.Financial independence is limited to day-to-day administration. With no defined hierarchy between Centre Directors and the Director, wider financial authority remains uncertain. More importantly, the Bill drops the requirement that centres be integrated with the Institute’s overall governance and academic planning. Far from providing genuine autonomy, this risks stunting the centres and creating disharmony.The most conspicuous omission is the headquarters. ISI is a multi-locational institute, making a headquarters and seat of the Director administratively and legally essential. Concerns about the missing headquarters were dismissed in the press as an unnecessary bogey, with a claim that Kolkata’s headquarters is protected by a saving clause. In reality, the saving clause preserves only ISI’s status as an Institute of National Importance.Encroachment on academic mattersMost worrying is the intrusion into academic decisions. The Bill makes audacious attempt to legally define “Statistical Sciences”, but omits fields such as probability and operations research. Such concepts should evolve through academic interactions, not by bureaucratic fiat. Arbitrary statutory definitions will indeed leave ISI unable “to respond to the requirements of an evolving academic and research environment”.The Bill also renders the Academic Council (AC) largely powerless. The Board needs its recommendations only on awarding degrees and diplomas. Introduction of new academic programmes, and even individual courses, rest with the Board rather than the AC.The daily quoted the Secretary on “siloed thinking” within ISI as its biggest problem. The Review Committee, however, recorded concurrence between ISI’s founding principle and NEP 2020 on multidisciplinarity.ISI has a distinctive model in which students of its flagship degree programmes receive academic-performance-linked stipends, alongside newer fee-paying programmes. The AC has defended this arrangement as central to academic excellence. The Bill gives the Board power to levy fees for all programmes, bypassing the AC.Fund generation – did MoSPI keep its side of the bargain?The charge that ISI cannot raise funds may have had some basis decades ago, but the Institute has improved rapidly. The Review Committee recorded compound growth rates of 12.18% and 11.27% for internal revenue and external funds respectively between FY 2010-11 and FY 2019-20, against 7.26% for grant-in-aid. ISI also trains MoSPI officers every year at a fraction of what other institutes would charge.At the same time, MoSPI made little progress on several Review Committee recommendations addressed to it. The recommendation to immediately and unconditionally raise faculty strength to 300 remains unimplemented. ISI has nearly achieved the 8:1 student-teacher ratio on which the Committee had premised a further increase to 350. The Institute remains seriously constrained by inadequate infrastructure funding to accommodate more students. Yet, contrary to the Secretary’s remarks, ISI has substantially expanded its courses and enrolment over the past two decades.A dangerous BillThe ISI Bill 2026 risks disrupting a functioning institution that has brought India distinction in statistics, mathematics, computer science and economics. Its contributions include pioneering work in cryptology, a unique programme in collaboration with IIT Kharagpur and IIM Calcutta, a hybrid programme designed to overcome infrastructural constraints, and the International Statistical Education Centre, which has earned India lasting goodwill among developing nations. ISI produced the country’s only Abel Laureate, while the only Indian winner of the International Prize in Statistics spent much of his career here – two awards equivalent to Nobel prize in Mathematics and Statistics. Its scientists continue to win international honours and solve problems that remained open for decades.The Bill would dismantle this structure and commit the Institute to years of uncertainty while a new one is constructed, with no assurance of success and no clear reason for the attempt. Parliament should therefore refer the Bill to an appropriate committee to examine whether repeal of the 1959 Act is at all necessary.Rajat Subhra Hazra is an Associate Professor at the University of Leiden, Netherlands. He has a PhD from ISI and has previously been a faculty member there.