West Bengal teachers and non-teaching staff who lost their jobs from the 2016 School Service Commission panel met School Education Minister Dipak Barman in Kolkata on Tuesday and sought a meeting with Chief Minister Shuvendu Adhikari, according to Anandabazar.
The meeting followed an overnight sit-in outside Bikash Bhavan that began on Monday. The protesters withdrew their demonstration after the education minister promised to meet them. After Tuesday’s discussion, representatives said they had placed four demands before the minister and warned that they would resume their protest if the chief minister did not meet them and take positive steps on their claims.
Chinmoy Mondal, a dismissed teacher and leader of the 2016 Qualified Teachers and Staff Rights Platform, said the protesters had asked the government to support them on the next hearing of their curative petition in the Supreme Court. The hearing scheduled for Tuesday did not take place, he said.
The protesters also demanded that the government file a curative petition to support the restoration of their jobs and appoint experienced lawyers for the case. Rupa Karmakar, another dismissed teacher, said they had asked for the curative petition hearing to be held in open court rather than in chambers.
The group further sought the immediate restoration of salaries for eligible non-teaching staff. Karmakar said their salaries had been stopped for 18 months. Suman Biswas, convenor of the dismissed and fasting employees’ platform, said the Supreme Court had directed the recovery of salaries paid to ineligible candidates, but that the government had not yet begun the process. He questioned why eligible employees’ salaries remained suspended, according to the report.
The dispute follows the cancellation of appointments of teachers and non-teaching staff from the SSC’s 2016 panel under Supreme Court directions. The protesters also raised compensation and government employment for families of dismissed employees who died after becoming ill. They cited the case of Subal Saren of West Midnapore district, whose family, according to his uncle Ratikanta Murmu, has not received compensation.
The protesters said they had previously approached the chief minister’s public grievance forum, where they were told that a meeting would be arranged. Biswas said four months had passed since the formation of the new government without that meeting taking place. The education minister has now promised to arrange a meeting with the chief minister, the report said.
