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A group of teachers who had lost their jobs after the Supreme Court in April found irregularities in the 2016 recruitment process clashed with the West Bengal Police during a protest in Kolkata on Thursday, reported The Indian Express.
They broke open the gate to the headquarters of the state education department and reportedly kept hundreds of employees confined in the building for more than eight hours, before the police began using force at around 8 pm, according to The Telegraph.
The police lathi-charged the protesters, leaving several of them injured. Some police personnel were also injured during the clashes, The Hindu reported.
On April 3, the Supreme Court upheld the Calcutta High Court’s April 2024 order terminating the appointment of about 25,000 teachers and non-teaching staff by West Bengal’s School Service Commission. The bench passed the order after observing that the recruitment process was “vitiated by manipulation and fraud”.
The top court on April 17 permitted “untainted” teachers to be retained until the end of the academic year or until fresh appointments are made, whichever is earlier.
The court, however, did not grant relief to Group C and Group D employees, or non-teaching staff, whose appointments were also cancelled.
In contrast, “tainted” candidates were instructed to repay their salaries and disqualified from any future appointments, The Hindu reported.
Since Wednesday, more than 1,000 dismissed teachers, classified as “not specifically tainted” and permitted to rejoin schools, have been protesting outside the education department headquarters, The Indian Express reported.
They have been demanding that they be reinstated immediately, without having to retake the recruitment exam. They also claim the government had not yet finalised the list of “tainted” and “untainted” candidates, as instructed by the Supreme Court, The Hindu reported
Further, they are protesting against the School Education Department and the School Service Commission for allegedly filing a review petition in the Supreme Court without consulting them, The Indian Express reported.
The High Court bench had passed its direction in April 2024 based on the findings of a re-evaluation of the Optical Mark Recognition sheets from the 2016 recruitment exam in the case.
The re-evaluation found that the selected teachers had been recruited against blank Optical Mark Recognition sheets.
This article first appeared on Scroll.in
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