KOLKATA: Braving intense heat and police lathis, hundreds of Government school teachers continued their protest outside Kolkata’s Bikash Bhawan against the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal Government for the 11th day running.
They are protesting the loss of 26,000 jobs in connection with the SSC (School Service Commission) recruitment scam in which former Education Minister Partha Chattopadhyay and a host of Trinamool leaders allegedly sold jobs and made crores. The Central investigating agencies unearthed crores of cash, jewellery and identified properties that it says are the “proceeds of crime”.
The protest follows a Supreme Court judgment on April 3 which held that it was impossible to separate the tainted and untainted candidates in the 2016 recruitment, and therefore cancelled the entire panel of 25,753 teachers and non-teaching staff with immediate effect. It also said that a fresh recruitment drive would have to be completed by the end of the year.
However, the State Government managed a reprieve after convincing the apex court that the education infrastructure in the State would collapse if the teachers were suddenly not available. In response to the State Government pleas, the Supreme Court modified its order and said that those “not specifically found to be tainted” would be allowed to continue till the end of the year.
The apex court took its decision saying that the students undergoing studies should not suffer on account of the order passed by the court following the irregularities in the entire recruitment process in 2016.
The then-CJI Sanjiv Khanna clarified that the relief was only for the teachers whose appointments were “untainted.” The top court also refused to grant relief to continue service to the staff in Groups C and D, stating that there are more “tainted” candidates in those categories.
The top court also directed the West Bengal Government and the WB School Service Commission to issue advertisements for fresh recruitment of assistant teachers by May 31 and to complete the entire process by December 31.
The protesters united under the “Genuine Teachers’ Rights Forum” started protesting in front of Bikash Bhavan. They demanded that rather than go in for fresh selections, the State Government should publish the OMR sheets and inform the court about those who got the jobs legitimately and thus save their jobs.
Addressing mediapersons, Mehboob Mondol, spokesperson of the teachers, said: “They did not consult with us or our advocates before filing a review petition before the honourable Supreme Court. All we want is that the genuine candidates get back their jobs with due respect, and at the same time, the ‘untainted’ candidates should be segregated from the ‘tainted’ ones. We shall not sit for another examination. The protesting teachers are raising slogans demanding justice.
On Thursday, many of the protesting school teachers were roughed up by people allegedly close to the local Trinamool councillor. Late in the evening, the police too lathi-charged them and left many injured. Among the injured was a woman teacher whose leg was reportedly broken, while another suffered a head injury. Eyewitnesses claimed that the injured women lay on the ground, screaming in pain and sobbing, as the police continued the lathi-charge instead of offering help.
Talking to reporters, ADG (Law and Order) Jawed Shamim and IG South Bengal Supratim Sarkar said the police had exercised “maximum restraint” for over seven hours on Thursday evening before taking action to assist Government employees “trapped inside” Bikash Bhavan.
Amid mounting outrage, BJP MLA and Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, slammed Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, accusing her of authoritarianism and shielding the corrupt. “If the Cabinet decides to protect thieves, then those in the Council of Ministers should be in jail,” Adhikari said. “If anyone is responsible for that, it is Mamata Banerjee and her entire Cabinet,” the BJP leader claimed.
Echoing Adhikari’s sentiments, BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar said: “Mamata Banerjee’s advisors told her to mix milk with water so that no one can differentiate them — meaning, protect the guilty by lumping them with the innocent. But the court exposed this trick…the police action on protesting teachers was a horrifying display of brutality.”
He further added: “Mamata Banerjee has turned West Bengal into a marketplace — if you want to buy a teaching job, just pay money. Those who are eligible should instead be given compensation from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund. These untainted teachers are paying the price for Trinamool’s greed.”