A beloved teacher who quit a private job that fetched around ₹2 lakh a month for the “honour” and “security” of working at a government-aided school is among those left jobless by Thursday’s Supreme Court order.

Mirajul Hossain, 41-year-old assistant teacher of physical science, may be an “innocent punished for other people’s crimes”, but the loss is greater for the students of VIP Nagar High School off EM Bypass.

“Mirajul is an exceptional teacher. He goes beyond the textbook. He has instilled a love of the sciences in his students. His departure has caused irreparable damage,” headmaster Dipen Sahoo said.

Hossain set up separate WhatsApp groups for different classes, and would respond to academic queries in the dead of night.

“It was mostly because of Hossain’s teaching that the students of Class IX and X in my school could do without private tuition for physical science,” headmaster Sahoo said.

The apex court ruling has cost the school two other teachers, too: a life science teacher from the secondary section and a history teacher from the higher secondary section.

The school is now left without any science teacher for its secondary students. It does not have a science stream in the higher secondary section.

Hossain was hesitant to talk to this newspaper about his “popularity”.

“I have not done anything special. A teacher should stoke curiosity in young and impressionable minds. That is what I try to do. I’m not alone; there are countless teachers like me,” he told The Telegraph.

Hossain said he was grateful to the headmaster for having helped him set up a rudimentary “practical classroom” for basic science experiments.

There, Hossain would explain Boyle’s law and Charles’s law with the help of ordinary objects like balloons, glasses and bottles.

The youngest of three brothers, Hossain is from a family of schoolteachers that traces its roots to Birbhum. He lost his parents at an early age. His eldest brother is a headmaster while his sister-in-law and middle brother are assistant teachers.

After earning a master’s in chemistry from a university in Kanpur, Hossain had in 2007 joined a coaching centre in Calcutta that groomed students for engineering and medical entrance tests.

His reputation grew as a tutor and by 2012, he was teaching at three different coaching centres, one of them part of a reputable chain. He earned more than ₹2 lakh a month. One of the places where he taught was a government institute that prepared students from tribal and other backward communities for engineering and medical admission tests.

Hossain got married in 2014. His wife, too, is an assistant teacher who cracked the State Level Selection Test conducted by the West Bengal School Service Commission in 2012.

Hossain wrote and cleared the 2016 test, persuaded by his brothers’ argument that a government schoolteacher’s job was more secure and prestigious.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court held the 2016 recruitment process to be“tainted beyond resolution” and cancelled the appointments of over 25,000 teachers and other staff appointed through it. “My elder brothers have been like parents to me. They would keep telling me to become a schoolteacher,” Hossain said. “After my marriage, the demand got louder. Everyone cited the security and pride associated with the job.”

Hossain made the cut as a teacher for both the higher secondary and secondary sections. The higher secondary school where he was offered a job was in West Midnapore while Hossain was then living in Baghajatin, on Calcutta’s southern fringes.

He, therefore, chose the other option — VIP Nagar School — joining its secondary section in January 2019.

Over the next six years, he became the students’ beloved “Miraj Sir”.

Now, in the middle of his personal crisis, Hossain is worried less about himself and more about the students he has been forced to leave behind.

He said he would take online classes till the school found a replacement. “I have a moral responsibility to the students.”

Hossain does not believe in “blaming anyone” for the mass sacking. “There is no doubt that corruption (in the recruitment) happened. So, the government cannot escape culpability. At the same time, the court’s order is contrary to the principles of natural justice,” he said.

“The innocent should not have been punished for other people’s crimes.”

Hossain’s former employers have urged him to return to his old profession, but he will not. Not, at least, until he has cracked the school selection test again and proved a personal point. “My family commands a lot of respect in our village. I cannot let it go to waste. I have to take the selection test again, whenever that happens. I have to get my job back. Then, I can leave it if I want and go back to my old life,” he said.