‘Innocent Teachers to Continue’: Supreme Court On Job Loss Crisis in West Bengal Schools

In a major relief for many assistant teachers in West Bengal, the Supreme Court on Thursday said that those who were “untainted” and lost their jobs due to an earlier court verdict could continue teaching. The decision, the court said, was made keeping in mind the interest of students across the state.

The court’s latest direction comes just weeks after a bombshell judgment on April 3, which cancelled the appointments of over 25,000 teaching and non-teaching staff in state-sponsored and aided schools. The mass termination came after the apex court found serious irregularities in the 2016 recruitment process carried out by the School Service Commission (SSC).

Court Orders New Recruitment Drive by December

The top court also ordered the West Bengal government to begin a fresh recruitment process by May 31, with the entire hiring procedure to be wrapped up by December 31. The idea is to bring in a clean, transparent system to replace the flawed one that had earlier allowed large-scale fraud.

The bench led by Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar made it clear that while the recruitment process of 2016 was fundamentally compromised, those candidates who had no role in the corruption should not be punished.

Earlier Judgment Canceled Over 25,000 Appointments

Back on April 3, the same bench had delivered a hard-hitting verdict where it cancelled more than 25,000 appointments of teaching and non-teaching staff. The court had found that the entire recruitment process was manipulated, with many candidates being appointed through unfair means.

In its detailed order, the court said that the scale of manipulation had “compromised the integrity of the entire selection process”, making it legally impossible to retain the appointments.

The verdict caused an uproar in the state, leaving thousands of employees jobless overnight. While the court aimed to clean up corruption, many of those affected said they had no idea there was any fraud and were caught up in the mess through no fault of their own.

Since then, these “untainted” teachers have been pleading for justice. They’ve taken to the streets and have been protesting through sit-ins, asking the state government and the SSC to find a way to identify the honest candidates and reinstate them.

Deserving” Teachers Demand to Be Heard

Teachers who believe they were fairly selected have argued that the SSC failed to separate genuine candidates from those who got their jobs through cheating or political influence.

They’ve also said it’s unfair to treat all 25,000 staffers as guilty, when in fact many were just victims of a broken system.

Mamata Banerjee Promises Support

Adding to the emotional weight of the issue, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee recently met with thousands of these affected teachers and support staff. She promised to stand by them and offer her full support.

“I stand by those who lost their jobs in schools in Bengal. I will do everything to restore their dignity,” Mamata said at the public gathering last week, where many jobless teachers turned up in tears.