The leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi has requested President Droupadi Murmu to ensure that teachers and non-teaching staff from Bengal schools who had secured their jobs through “fair means” are allowed to continue.
Writing to the President, herself a former teacher, Rahul wrote: “You have served as a teacher yourself. I am sure you understand the enormous human cost of this injustice – to the teachers, their families and students. I request you to kindly consider their request favourably and urge the government to intervene in the matter to ensure that candidates selected through fair means are allowed to continue.”
Rahul said to treat the “untainted” teachers at par with the “tainted” ones would be an injustice.
A five-member delegation had met Rahul in New Delhi on Saturday, a day after the Supreme Court struck down the recruitment process of 25, 753 teachers and non-teaching staff as “vitiated" and upheld a Calcutta high court verdict from last year.
Both the Calcutta high court and the Supreme Court had asked the state government and the school service commission to demarcate those who got their jobs through the proper process while others allegedly bought their jobs.
“I have written to the President Droupadi Murmu seeking her kind intervention in the matter of thousands of qualified schoolteachers in West Bengal who have lost their jobs following the judiciary’s cancellation of the teacher recruitment process,” Rahul wrote on his X (formerly Twitter) handle.
“The Calcutta high court found serious irregularities in teacher recruitment and declared the entire process null and void. On April 3, the SC upheld the high court judgment. Since the verdict, the teachers as well as staff who stand to be terminated have almost given up hope for any redressal,” Rahul wrote.
Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee had addressed a select group of the affected teaching and non-teaching staff, where she assured them that the Bengal government will ensure their jobs are not lost. She also asked these employees to resume work as the government has not terminated them yet, while efforts are being made to seek clarification from the apex court.
“Both judgments found that some candidates were untainted – selected through fair means, and some ‘tainted’ – selected through unfair means. Any crime committed during recruitment should be condemned, and the perpetrators must be brought to justice. However, treating teachers selected through fair means on par with tainted teachers is a serious injustice,” Rahul wrote.
The leader of Opposition said most of the teachers have been working for around a decade. Though the examination for the state level selection test was announced in 2016, the results were declared two years later.
“Most ‘untainted’ teachers have served for nearly a decade. Terminating them will force lakhs of students into classrooms without teachers. Their arbitrary termination will destroy their morale and motivation to serve, and deprive their families of what is often the sole source of income,” the leader of Opposition wrote.
On Saturday Rahul met Hanjala Sheikh, Sangeeta Saha, Mohammad Golam Ghaus Mandal, Tanmay Ghosh and Feroz Mandal at his Tughlaq Road residence and requested him to raise the matter in the Parliament and also arrange a meeting with President Murmu.
Rahul could not raise the matter in the House as the session ended on Friday but kept his word and urged Rashtrapati Bhawan’s intervention in Bengal’s continuing education crisis.