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West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has pledged to protect the rights of ‘eligible candidates’ who lost their jobs after a recent Supreme Court verdict, evoking mixed responses from the affected teachers, thousands of whom turned up to hear the leader speak but remained dangling between hope and despair after she finished.
According to PTI, While a section of teachers thanked Banerjee for her assertion to ‘continue fighting for them as long as she is alive and even if it meant going to jail’, a significant number of others expressed dissatisfaction, claiming no concrete guarantees were provided regarding reinstatement of their jobs.
Speaking at a packed gathering of the affected people, Banerjee said, “No one has received any termination letter yet. So continue with your work. You are free to offer voluntary service in the meantime.”
The Supreme Court on April 3 upheld a 2024 Calcutta high court judgment annulling the recruitment of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staff appointed through the 2016 School Service Commission (SSC) recruitment drive, terming the entire selection process ‘vitiated and tainted’.
Those who were rendered jobless claimed that the reason behind their plight was the inability of the SSC to differentiate between the candidates who secured employment through fraudulent means and those who did not.
Banerjee said the state administration would first seek clarification from the apex court, and if needed, file a review petition ‘to ensure the interests of eligible candidates are safeguarded’.
“If the clarification is not in our favour, we will make alternative arrangements within two months. No eligible candidate will be jobless. The government has not sent any termination letters. You can continue to teach voluntarily,” she said.
She said after settling the issue of eligible candidates, she would personally look into the cases of those declared ineligible.
“If someone is truly proven to be ineligible, I won’t be able to help them. But we need to verify who has declared them ineligible and on what basis.”
