A section of sacked teachers who have been barred from returning to school went to Bikash Bhavan, the education secretariat, on Monday to demand that they be allowed to resume work and draw salaries.
They met officials of the education department and demanded the same relief that has been given to 15,403 “not specifically found tainted” teachers, and asked to be allowed to return to school till December 31.
The members of the United Teaching and Non-teaching Forum said they gave legal documents to the department to prove why they could not be identified as “tainted”.
Biplab Bibar, one of the four members of the team that went to Bikash Bhavan, said: “We told the officials that we could not figure out why we have been categorised as tainted teachers. The CBI has mentioned that our case comes under the OMR dispute category. But the Supreme Court, in its April 3 order, refused to take cognisance of the
CBI report. Then why have we been barred from going to school? Why was our salary stopped?”
The school service commission has excluded 1,804 teachers from a pool of 17,206 teachers, after the apex court on April 17 ruled on a plea by the state secondary board that only those “not specifically found tainted” could go back to school till December.
“The department has already filed a review petition against the Supreme Court’s April 3 order on the termination of the jobs of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staff in government-aided schools. We hope that while arguing the case in the court, the legal point that we raised on Monday will be mentioned,” said another member of the
delegation.