Dismissed teachers who have been barred from returning to school assembled near the Hazra crossing on Monday afternoon, demanding that they be allowed to work till December 31 like the rest or be given a monthly allowance until their case is resolved.
They had planned a march to chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s home in Kalighat, about a kilometre away, but police prevented them.
A sit-in outside Jatin Das Park started at 12.30pm and continued till 2.30, when the police drove them away and arrested some of them.
Kamalesh Kapat, a spokesperson for the United Teaching and Non-teaching Forum, said they could not understand why 1,804 teachers had been axed from the list of 17,206 for whom the state secondary education board pleaded in its April 17 petition before the Supreme Court that they be allowed to continue until the end of the academic year.
The board moved the petition contending that classes in the ongoing academic year would suffer if the 17,206 teachers were barred from returning to the school.
The Supreme Court ruled on April 17 that only teachers “not specifically found to be tainted” could be allowed to return to school till the end of the year and draw salaries. The SSC then came out with a segregated list of 15,403 eligible teachers.
This meant that 1,804 teachers had been put on the list of tainted teachers whose salaries had to be stopped.
“We fail to understand why we have been put on the list of tainted. The CBI in its report before the Supreme Court has stated that some of the teachers stand accused of OMR disputes. But the Supreme Court refused to accept the report. Then, on what basis have we been categorised as tainted? Why have our salaries been stopped?” asked Kapat.
On April 3, the apex court said it may have accepted the SSC’s argument for not annulling the entire selection process if the commission had the original physical OMR sheets or mirror images of the OMRs.
“If we are not allowed to return to schools until December, then the state government must give us some allowance on the lines of what has been proposed for the Group C and D employees. Else, how will we survive?” a sacked teacher said on Monday.
The chief minister on Saturday proposed that the sacked Group C and D employees be given ₹25,000 and ₹20,000, respectively, as monthly allowances until the state government files a review petition before the Supreme Court and the case is resolved.
SSC office
A group of ineligible teachers prevented officials of the school service commission in Salt Lake from leaving the office till late on Monday. The SSC chairperson was not present but other officials were confined.