The Trinamool Congress (TMC) leadership in West Bengal on Tuesday expressed happiness over the Supreme Court’s decision to grant an interim stay on the order of the Calcutta High Court terminating the jobs of about 26,000 teachers and non-teaching staff recruited for State-run schools.
The termination of jobs has emerged as a political issue in the ongoing Lok Sabha election, and became a high point of the campaigns of both the ruling and Opposition parties in the State.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that she was “really very happy and mentally relaxed” on receiving justice at the highest court of the land. While addressing election rallies on Tuesday, the TMC chairperson targeted Opposition parties over the job terminations and said “like man-eating tigers there are job-eating tigers” in the State.
Speaking in a similar vein, TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee said truth had triumphed. “The Honorable Supreme Court has DEFUSED the BJP’s ‘EXPLOSIVE’ hurled last week to malign Bengal’s image and destabilise WB government. TRUTH HAS TRIUMPHED! We will continue to defy all odds and stand shoulder to shoulder with the people until our last breath,” Mr. Banerjee posted on social media platform X.
The issue of termination of jobs that came into effect after an order by a Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court on April 22 was raised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his election campaign in the State. The PM assured legal help to candidates who had qualified in the examination without using unfair means and had lost their jobs due to the High Court order.
A Division Bench of Justices Debangsu Basak and Justice Md Shabbar Rashi invalidated the appointment of 25,753 teachers and non-teaching staff on grounds of irregularities in the appointment process.
A section of teachers whose jobs were terminated started a hunger strike after the High Court order in Kolkata, which was called off following the intervention of the Supreme Court.
The BJP leadership also held a press conference and said that the developments had proved beyond doubt that there had been illegality in the recruitment of teachers and non-teaching staff by the TMC government. “There has not been a single recruitment in the Trinamool Congress regime that has been without corruption,” BJP spokesperson Shamik Bhattacharya said.
Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Rajya Sabha MP and senior advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, who represented a section of the petitioners before the Supreme Court, said that the question was how would the School Service Commission distinguish between the candidates who had secured jobs using fair means and those who did so via unfair means. Mr. Bhattacharya said that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe in the matter would continue, and the next date of hearing in the case was July 16.
The legal issue assumed political ramifications particularly after former Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay, who presided over the cases of irregularity in school recruitment and directed the CBI investigation into the scam, joined the BJP. Mr. Gangopadhyay is contesting as the BJP candidate from the Tamluk Lok Sabha seat. The TMC leadership, in its reaction to the legal developments, also targeted the former Judge and said that the Supreme Court order had foiled the BJP’s plans to defame West Bengal.
