West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday assured full support to eligible candidates who lost school jobs following a Supreme Court order, asserting that her government will ensure they don’t remain jobless or have a break in service.
Speaking at a meeting of school job losers at the Netaji Indoor Stadium here, Banerjee urged the affected teachers and staff to return to their respective schools and “voluntarily” resume duties.
The apex court had on April 3 invalidated the appointment of 25,753 teachers and staffers in state-run and aided schools in Bengal who were selected through a state School Service Commission recruitment drive in 2016, calling the entire selection process “vitiated and tainted”.
Banerjee also assured the aggrieved teachers that she would make alternative arrangements for all deserving candidates “within two months”. “You can return to your schools and voluntarily resume teaching. You are still in service since no termination letter has been served to you yet. Our government is duty-bound to ensure that no deserving candidate loses a job. We have plans ready to ensure that the eligible candidates do not face any break in service. We will not allow them to remain jobless,” Banerjee said at the meeting, where thousands of affected teachers had turned up.
“I will stand by those who lost their jobs. I don’t care what others think. I will do everything to restore your dignity,” she said.
Asserting that the state government respects the Supreme Court ruling, Banerjee said the administration is taking proactive steps to handle the situation with “utmost care and fairness”.
While confirming that her government will move a review petition on the apex court judgment and “seek clarifications” on the April 3 ruling from the bench concerned, the chief minister outlined a two-phase plan to “restore the jobs” of those whose appointments were annulled by the top court.
“In the first phase, we will look into the details of the deserving candidates and take all steps necessary to give them back the jobs they have lost,” Banerjee said. “In phase two, we will take up the cases of the so-called tainted candidates. We will dig deep into why they were branded as ‘undeserving’, the grounds on which they were found tainted and how the investigations that found them guilty were conducted. I will hold a separate meeting with them,” the CM said.
Banerjee appealed to the aggrieved teachers to “trust” the government in doing its job, and said there should be no face-offs between the “deserving” and “tainted” candidates.
