'Eligible' Kolkata Teachers Stage Protest After Top Court's Ruling

Around 500 'eligible' teachers, whose jobs were annulled following a Supreme Court order which invalidated the jobs of around 26,000 teachers, rallied in the city on Thursday demanding they should not be penalised and clubbed with the 'tainted'.

Mehboob Mondal, one of the spokespersons of 'Jogyo Sikshak Manch' (Eligible Teachers Forum), told PTI, "We hit the streets to voice the demands of deserving teachers that they should not be penalised for the failure of the School Service Commission (SSC) to differentiate between the deserving and tainted candidates who sat for the recruitment tests in 2016 and got appointment letters."

"We were lathi-charged by police for handing over a deputation to the office of District Inspector of Education in the city and kicked by a police officer. We can't even protest democratically against the snatching of our jobs due to large-scale corruption by the state government. So where should we go now? We are on the roads finding no other alternative," Mr Mondal alleged.

Asked if they would join the relay hunger strike with another group of eligible teachers in front of the SSC office building, Mr Mondal said, "We will decide after this programme. If they (fasting teachers) are also eligible, we will be with them. Let us find out," he added.

He also clarified that the forum is not associated with another section of teachers who are staging a sit-in at Sahid Minar, but will support the legitimate demand of any deserving candidate.

While one rally reached Esplanade via Central Avenue, covering a distance of over 2 km, another rally was taken out in Sealdah and converged at the same venue.

A strong police force was present escorting the two rallies, but there was no untoward incident as the teachers holding placards reading 'We want back our job' and 'SSC should come out with the list of tainted/untainted candidates' walked on.

The Supreme Court on April 3 upheld a 2024 Calcutta High Court judgment annulling the recruitment of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staff appointed through a recruitment drive by SSC in 2016, terming the entire selection process 'vitiated and tainted.'

Those who were rendered jobless claimed that the reason behind their plight was inability of the SSC to differentiate between candidates who secured employment through fraudulent means and those who did not.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had earlier arrested former West Bengal education minister Partha Chatterjee and some other officials, who held positions in the state's SSC when the irregularities in the recruitment process took place.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)