Mita Mukherjee
It is possible to publish the list of “deserving” and “undesevinging” candidates among the sacked teachers subject to legal advice, education minister Bratya Basu said after a meeting with a 13-member delegation of protesting teachers on Friday.
After a three-hour meeting with a team of “deserving” jobless teachers, the minister also said that 22 lakh mirror images now with CBI could also be published again if legal advice permits.
Representatives of the delegation after attending the meeting said they have been told that the State School Service Commission (SSC) has said that the process of preparing the list is on and it should be published by April 21.
Later, Basu told reporters, “It is possible to publish a list of deserving and undeserving candidates. It is also possible to come out with mirror or scanned images of OMR sheets”.But this is subject to legal advice. We have to seek legal advice before we take any step,” the minister said.
The SSC that conducted the recruitments in 2016 will file a review petition in the Supreme Court which cancelled the appointments of 25,753 teachers and non- teaching staff of state-aided schools on April 3 saying that the entire selection process was vitiated. The case is likely to be heard on April 17.
The meeting and the promises from the government came on a day a large section of teachers who lost their jobs marched to the SSC office demanding the commission demarcate the “deserving” and “undeserving” candidates and publish the OMR sheets.
After the meeting, Chinmoy Mandal a member of Deserving Teachers’ Rights Forum said they were ” optimistic” as the government has ” partially agreed” to their demands but they would continue to protest outside the SSC office till April 17. Mandal said,” We will get full relief once we get victory in Supreme Court “.
Education minister Basu, however, urged the sacked school teachers to return to school and urged them to have faith on chief minister Mamata Banerjee who has already promised to ensure that the jobless “untainted” teachers would get justice.
“We will see who opposes the review petition plea filed by the secondary education board. The review plea will come for hearing on April 17. This time we are expecting a clear direction regarding the salary matter.”
Some teachers who have lost jobs have started a relay hunger strike since Thursday.
Basu said that the government wants the impasse to be over but there is a small group who want this crisis to continue with a political motive. ” We will keep eye on the hearing so that we get a clear picture about who wants this impasse to continue and who wants it to be over.”
