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Bengal schools grapple with crisis as 26,000 teachers, staff leave following SC order
At Bansberia Ganges High School in Hooghly district, head master Vishal Tiwari told reporters that the school lost 15 of its 41 staff members due to the verdict
KOLKATA: A large number of schools across West Bengal faced a crisis on Friday as 25,752 teachers and Group C and D employees, who lost their jobs following the Supreme Court verdict in the bribe-for-job case, stopped coming to the institutions, people familiar with the matter said.
Their absence affected scores of junior-secondary, secondary and higher secondary schools - many of them are holding class examinations - which had to grapple with the crisis with no immediate solution coming from the state education department.
At Bansberia Ganges High School in Hooghly district, head master Vishal Tiwari told reporters that the school lost 15 of its 41 staff members due to the verdict.
“Three life science and two mathematics teachers were among those whose appointments were cancelled by the court. It is extremely difficult for us to run the school,” Tiwari said.
The Ghoshpara Junior High School at Dhupguri in north Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district, which has a dozen students, had a teacher and a Group-D staffer. “After the teacher died in May, a teacher from another school was sent on deputation by the district school board. There was nobody to unlock the gate and classrooms on Friday as the Group-D staffer lost his job. The temporary teacher had to do his work,” a Dhupguri sub-divisional official said, requesting anonymity.
Thursday’s verdict came after three years of court-ordered probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement Directorate amid numerous hearings at the Calcutta high court on petitions filed by people who argued that they did not get the jobs due to corruption.
Those who have lost their jobs were all empanelled in 2016. A bench led by Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna said it had no option but to scrap the entire panel because there was no way left to differentiate between tainted and untainted employees. Many of the affected teachers questioned the verdict saying CBI never named them as tainted appointees during the hearings.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee criticised the verdict on Thursday but stressed that her government would follow the order and urged the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) to complete a fresh appointment process in three months for those who are eligible.
WBSSC chairman Siddhartha Majumdar, however, told reporters on Friday that it would be impossible to recruit fresh teachers in just three months.
“Not everything said in the judgement is clear to us. We have sought legal opinion,” said Majumdar.
“Last year, as many as 2.6 million people applied for the posts of secondary and higher secondary teachers and Group C and D staff. Of them, 2.2 million appeared for the SSC examination. This is an extensive process. That’s why a panel is operational for 12 months,” he added.
In May 2022, the Calcutta high court ordered CBI to probe allegations that appointees paid bribes in the range of ₹5-15 lakh after failing selection tests between 2014 and 2021 when TMC’s Partha Chatterjee was the education minister. ED launched a parallel probe and arrested Chatterjee and his close aide Arpita Mukherjee in July 2022 and seized cash, jewellery and immovable property worth ₹103.10 crore linked to the duo. Around 50 more people, including some TMC leaders, were subsequently arrested.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) continued to target the ruling Trinamool Congress over the issue.
BJP Sambit Patra attacked the TMC at a media briefing in Kolkata while the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the students’ front of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh held a demonstration outside the SSC office in the city.
“The cash seized during Chatterjee’s arrest was the hard-earned money of 2.4 million job applicants who appeared that year. Nobody knows how much of their money has gone to the TMC’s election fund. Mamata Banerjee must answer to the people,” Patra said.
BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari, the leader of the opposition in the state legislative assembly, said teachers who had emerged unscathed in the CBI probe could still move court.
“They have the option to file writ petitions before the Supreme Court. We are with them,” said Adhikari.
Education minister Bratya Basu, who took over after Chatterjee’s arrest, said only the SSC can decide the next legal step.
“SSC will decide how to move ahead. The chief minister has said she will talk to the affected teachers at their meeting in Kolkata on April 7. They should not lose hope. We will do something,” said Basu.
The political duel brought little relief to people like Somnath Malo, a resident of Taherpur in Nadia district.
Physically challenged and a patient of blood cancer since the past five years, Malo was a Group-C employee of Birnagar High School. The clerk lost his job on Thursday.
“I won gold for India in the Far East and South Pacific Games for the Disabled (FESPIC) in South Korea in 2002. I got this job in 2016. I have a wife and two children. How will my family survive now?” Malo told the media.
