Chief minister Mamata Banerjee announced an ex gratia payment for the Group C and Group D staff from the 2016 panel of the School Service Commission who lost their jobs following an order of the Supreme Court earlier this month in the cash-for-jobs scam.
“You are not receiving salaries. We have several social security schemes. We have kept the education department out of this. After consultation with the chief secretary, state labour minister and lawyers we have worked out a solution,” Mamata said in a telephonic conversation with representatives of protesters on Saturday afternoon.
Mamata said the state government has been making a similar ex gratia payment of Rs 10,000 to the workers of Dunlop for many years.
“We have decided to pay Rs 25,000 to the Group-C staff and Rs 20,000 to the Group-D staff. They have to tell me if they agree to it,” said Mamata.
On April 3, a division bench of the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice of India Sanjeev Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar had dismissed 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staff employed in state-run and state-aided schools upholding a previous order of a Calcutta High Court division bench.
It observed that the “entire selection process is vitiated” and “manipulation and fraud on a large scale, coupled with the intention to cover up have tainted the selection process beyond repair.”
Two weeks later, the Supreme Court allowed the teacher in classes IX, X, XI and XII to return to the classrooms while instructing the state government to restart the recruitment process and complete it by December 31. No leeway was made for the Group-C and Group-D staff.
“We will only grant extension to the teachers and not to the Group-IV candidates,” said CJI Khanna. “We are not inclined to accept the prayer as far as Group C and D employees are concerned, as the number of established tainted candidates is substantially high in number.”
Mamata assured the teachers and non-teaching staff who have been in the streets demanding the list of “tainted” – those who used unfair means to secure jobs – and “untainted” be made public.
Earlier this week at a public event Mamata had rebuked the protesters for insisting on segregating the lists, claiming it was not their concern.
“I won’t speak about the tainted and untainted as I have not received any list with evidence. We will go for review (petition) on the SC order for everyone. They should have told us drop these candidates, keep these candidates but we were not told,” the chief minister had said.
From the time the SC dismissed the jobs Mamata has blamed the lawyers who filed the case for going to the court against what turned out to be one of the biggest recruitment scams.
“By the first week of May we should be able to submit the review petition. Legal advice is being taken. We will also try to ensure that they do not have to sit for tests again. If the apex court rejects entirely, we will look for an alternate route to protect the jobs without violating the law,” Mamata said.