The postponement of the hearing of a case in the Supreme Court that will determine whether the recruitment of 23,123 teaching and non-teaching employees in Bengal’s government-aided schools was valid has left those who think they had been recruited fairly disappointed.
The members of the Forum for Deserving Teachers’ Rights, who have been holding an indefinite sit-in in Esplanade’s Y-channel since December 27, said they were disappointed because they expected the Supreme Court to clear the air on who was deserving and who was undeserving based on the evidence provided by the school service commission.
The commission had in 2015 conducted the written test based on which the teachers were recruited.
“The commission had earlier told Calcutta High Court that there were complaints of anomalies about the recruitment of 5,000 teaching and non-teaching employees. The same record has been placed before the Supreme Court, which is now hearing the case. Based on this evidence, the Supreme Court must ascertain who is deserving and undeserving without delay,” said Chinmoy Mondal, teaching at a school in Halisahar, in North 24-Parganas, for six years.
“We expected the apex court to give an order on Tuesday. The delay has added to the agony of those of us appointed fairly.”
On April 22, 2024, a Calcutta High Court division bench led by Justice Debanshu Basak cancelled the appointment of over 23,000 teachers and non-teaching staff at the secondary and higher secondary levels at government-aided schools on the ground that it was impossible to segregate the illegal appointments from the legal ones.
The high court gave the order following a CBI probe.
On April 22, the commission’s chairperson, Siddhartha Majumdar, told reporters: “We told the (high) court that there were complaints of anomalies about the recruitment of 5,000 teaching and non-teaching staff. This we ascertained from what the CBI has told us.”
The Supreme Court granted an interim stay on the order on May 7 and has been hearing the case since.
Anwesha Basak, who has been teaching at a school in Calcutta’s Cossipore for five years, told The Telegraph: “We are looking forward to an order from the Supreme Court based on the evidence produced by the SSC as it will rid us of the stigma that we had been recruited illegally. So long we carry the stigma, it will keep tormenting us mentally and physically. My job is to teach with full dedication. But this case constantly haunts us. It has defamed us and we want this to end immediately.”
An SSC official said the evidence produced before the high court is part of the record and has been submitted before the Supreme Court as well.
“We arrived at the figure (the 5,000-odd teaching and non-teaching employees against whom there were complaints of anomalies) based on the details provided by the CBI and gathered by our sources,” said an SSC official.
When contacted, SCC chairman Siddhartha Majumdar, who was in Delhi to attend the hearing that has been deferred, declined comment.
Two members of the Forum for Deserving Teachers’ Rights also went to Delhi to attend the hearing.
The state government in its petition before the Supreme Court said the high court’s ruling would cause a “huge vacuum in the state schools” and bring the education system to “a standstill”.
