A primary school principal in Bihar was suspended on Sunday for “tarnishing” the state government’s image by hawking jute bags in the marketplace — which hundreds of other schoolteachers too did following an official order but without their activity drawing attention.

Muhammad Tamizuddin had been visiting the local Kadwa Bazar in Katihar district every day carrying a stack of jute bags on his head and wearing a placard that spelt out he was a schoolteacher forced to sell gunny sacks on the government’s orders, The Telegraph had reported on Monday.

On July 22, the state education department had ordered Bihar’s 80,000 primary and middle schools to sell — at Rs 10 apiece — the sacks in which midday meal grains had been sent to them.

It said the sacks should be sold in three days, the money deposited with the treasury and a report submitted. Tamizuddin — and teacher associations — have said that no one wants to buy the sacks because they have been damaged by floods and rats or worn out by students sitting on them in classrooms bereft of benches.

“Muhammad Tamizuddin did not follow the department’s directives on time, and when asked for a report, carried a bundle of empty bags on his head, shouted the slogan, ‘Bora le lo, bora le lo (Buy sacks)’, demonstrated at a public place and made viral its video on social media,” says the suspension order, issued on Sunday evening — suggesting the government treated the matter as urgent.

“This behaviour by Muhammad Tamizuddin is against Section 17 of the Bihar Panchayat Primary School Service Rules 2020 pertaining to the conduct of primary schoolteachers. It is not only indicative of revenue loss to the government and financial irregularity, but has tarnished the image of the district administration and the government.”

Tamizuddin denied any role in the making or circulation of the video showing him hawking sacks.

He expressed surprise at the timing of the suspension, saying the officer in charge of the midday meal scheme in Kadwa block had written to him on Friday, giving him time till Monday to explain his actions.

“I’m yet to get the suspension letter though I saw it when somebody in a chat group posted it on a social networking site,” he told this newspaper. “I have done no wrong and will fight for justice.”

Associations of the state’s primary school teachers have threatened an agitation if Tamizuddin’s suspension is not revoked, the order to sell the sacks not cancelled, and the officials behind the order not punished.

The panchayat secretary of the area where Tamizuddin’s school is located had issued the suspension order at the behest of the district education officer, who had received a letter from education department special secretary and midday meal director Satish Chandra Jha.

Asked about the suspension order being issued on a Sunday, Jha said: “The matter came to our knowledge on Sunday. There’s no rule that we can’t work on a Sunday; we get the salary for Sundays too.”

He added enigmatically: “Besides, a suspension is not a punishment under the service conduct rules.”

Asked how the teachers were supposed to sell the sacks if not in the marketplace, he said they should have “called vendors to the schools”.

Manoj Kumar, acting president of the state primary teachers’ association, said: “That the state government suspended Tamizuddin on a Sunday without giving him a chance to defend himself shows its vindictiveness towards teachers.”

Another primary teachers’ association — the Parivartankari Prarambhik Shikshak Sangh — wrote to chief minister Nitish Kumar, education minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary, senior government officials and the state human rights commission on the matter.

“Teachers across the state are trying to sell sacks in the light of the government directive but are not getting buyers,” its president Vanshidhar Brajvasi wrote.

He added that if the government didn’t want teachers to hawk the sacks in the marketplace, it “should arrange for an alternative way”.

The Opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal accused the state government of “torturing teachers on various pretexts”.

The July 22 order was issued after the office of the comptroller and auditor general raised a spectre of revenue loss in its reports relating to financial years 2014-15 and 2015-16.

Around 1.27 crore jute bags had reached the schools under the midday meal scheme in those two years, the July 22 letter said, implying the government was expecting to earn Rs 12.7 crore from their sale.